Dual Career of Student-Athletes with Disabilities as a Tool for Social Inclusion (Para-Limits)

Background It is estimated that there are 80 million people with some form of disability in the European Union, representing 15% of the population. People with disabilities are undoubtedly among the most vulnerable and at risk of social exclusion. Sport and higher education can contribute to the process of inclusion of people with disabilities by reducing individual, social and environmental barriers among those student-athletes of adapted sport who seek to develop a dual career. Objectives Para-Limits project is aimed at enabling high-level sportsmen and women with some kind of disability to successfully complete their sports and university careers without undermining one over the other. The overall aim is to contribute to EU policies on social inclusion through the promotion of Dual Career for high level athletes with disabilities through the design a comprehensive solution that can be implemented with low cost and effort in different member countries of the European Union. Implementation The project was divided in 6 intellectual Outputs: Research activities of the state of the art, aimed at detecting obstacles, needs and barriers of this group (O1 & O2); the design and development of an innovative online curriculum aimed at training expert mentors (O3) and its implementation (O4). A Handbook that gathers all the information generated in the project and serves for its replicability in other institutions (O5) and an Observatory to monitor the project's legacy (O6). Achievements The final results of the project have been: the training of twenty university lecturers into expert mentors in dual career in disability and sport; an innovative online public access course to train new mentors; four high impact scientific publications; a guide of good practices in adapted dual careers; a Handbook to replicate the project; a collective work with all the findings and an Observatory to continue the research in this field.