British Rowing helps launch £10m for University funding
Sport England has announced a £10 million National Lottery funding round, Active Universities, aimed at increasing the number of university students playing sport regularly by 100,000. The scheme was formally launched in Sheffield at a joint Sport England and BUCS conference, with rowing being used as a case study about how National Governing Bodies and the University sector can work together effectively.
With just under three in 10 university students currently playing sport at least three times a week, Active Universities is a drive to create accessible sporting opportunities for the 72% who say they would like to do more sport. It is the third Sport England competitive themed round aimed at addressing challenges to grassroots sport and opportunities to increase participation.
Sport England would like to see universities engaging with a range of partners in developing innovative bids that will tackle the barriers to student participation such as:
- insufficient number of coaches, volunteers and co-ordinators to increase and sustain student participation
- over-structured and inflexible sporting provision within universities which doesn’t cater for all students, particularly those who don’t want to compete for their university
- failure to replicate the sporting opportunities that young people had previously enjoyed at sports clubs in their local community
- capacity issues at universities that don’t have sports facilities on their sites and haven’t yet formed partnerships with other providers, research shows that nine out of 10 university sports halls are at capacity during term time
You can find out all about the Active Universities fund here
Active Universities opens for applications on 29th March 2010 and will close on 23rd June 2010. Sport England is holding four pre-application workshops on 7th April in Bristol, 9th April in London, 15th April in Birmingham and 19th April in Manchester.
For further information please contact your local Coaching & Development Team Leader or Simon Dickie on 07818 576135
