Kick-off meeting

On february 4th we had our online kick-off meeting with all 9 project partners in which we addressed and discussed various topics such as the project plan, objectives, several partnerships, events and many more!

Shaundre Dwaylynn Jacobs

The contribution of the SA Sport Academy System towards High performance sport development as perceived by academy athletes, coaches and administrators in the Western Cape.

The aim of Shaundre’s research is to provide a complete understanding of the sport policies in South Africa (SA) with regard to the elite sporting system created to develop high performance athletes. She assesses what facilitates and/or inhibits the Elite Sport Policies of South Africa through the configurational lens of realist evaluation.

Jacqueline Patatas

PARA-SPLISS: Sports System and Policy Factors Influencing Athletic Career Pathways in Paralympic Sports

Jacqueline’s PhD examines the sport policy factors that influence the Paralympic athlete pathways by identifying the different stages of Paralympic athletes’ attraction, retention, talent ID/development and mastery/perfection stage. Two specific research aims have been set:

1. To identify systems and structures to optimise Paralympic athlete development pathways, sport and impairment specific;

2. To understanding the relationship between macro/meso/micro level influencing factors and sporting success.

"Success is a journey, not a destination."

PhD defence of the dissertation of Pingwei Li titled: The role of junior succes in the development of professional tennis players.

Aurélie Pankowiak: Winner SMAANZ student research award

She has been awarded the SMAANZ student research award for her research on National Paralympic Excellence: Developing an elite sport policy framework to assess the effectiveness of national elite sport systems for Paralympic success.

Research output and factsheets

Read our recently conducted studies captured in two-pager research factsheets below:

• Elite sport policies and international sporting success: A panel data analysis of European women’s national football team performance. By Valenti, M., Scelles, N., Morrow,S.(2020) (FACTSHEET 12)

• Towards a system theoretical understanding of the parasport context, by Patatas, J.M., De Bosscher, V., De Cocq, S., Jacobs, S., Legg, D. (2019) (FACTSHEET 13)

• Managing Parasport: An investigation of sport policy factors and stakeholders influencing para athletes’ career pathways. By Patatas, J.M., De Bosscher, V., Derom, I., De Rycke, J. (2020) (FACTSHEET 14)

• Stakeholders’ perceptions of athletic career pathways in Paralympic sport: From participation to excellence. By Patatas, J.M., De Bosscher, V., Derom, I., Winckler, C. (2020) (FACTSHEET 15)

More SPLISS-related publications

• Inter-organizational Relationships between Governmental Stakeholders in South African elite sport: Resource dependency and inter-organisational theoretical perspectives (2021). International journal of sport policy and politics. Download. Jacobs, S., De Bosscher, V., Venter, R.

• Predicting elite success: Evidence comparing the career pathways of top 10 to 300 professional tennis players (2020). INTERNATIONAL Journal of Sports Science & Soaching. Download. Li,PW; Weissensteiner, JR; Pion, J; De Bosscher, V.

• Stakeholders perceptions of athletic career pathways in paralmpic sport: from participation to excellence (2020). Sport in Society. Download. Patatas, J., De Bosscher, V., Derom, I., Winckler, C.

• High-performance judo: identification of the organisational factors influencing international sporting success (2020). Managing Sport and Leisure. Download. Mazzei, L. C., De Bosscher, V., Ferreira Julio, U., Lopes Cury, R., & Silveira Böhme, M. T.

SPLISS 2.0

Interested in a 15 country comparison of elite sport systems and policies?

Read more

Get noted

Did you also use SPLISS in your research project and wish to write a research factsheet? Let us know by mail and we can disseminate your work!