Friday, 11 July 2014

UniTrento at the Sports Group of the EU Council

Paolo Bouquet in Bruxelles to speak about the link between sports and innovation

Versione stampabile

Sports and innovation: the focus of the speech by Paolo Bouquet in Brussels
All representatives of the member states and the European Commission participated in the "Working Party on Sport" of the EU Council, the first meeting of the Sports Group.
Paolo Bouquet, professor at the Department Information engineering and science of the University of Trento, Rector’s Delegate for sports activities and Vice-President of the OC of Trentino 2013 Winter Universiade, held a speech on  “Sport as a Driver of Innovation and Economic Growth” .

During the Universiade, Bouquet had proposed a challenge: to propose Trentino as an international pole of attraction for researchers, entrepreneurs and public administrators interested in investing in the potential of sports combined with research and technology innovation. The Chair of the Sports Group of the EU Council invited Bouquet to Brussels and subsequently drafted a document to submit at European level the creation of specific clusters between sports and university, research centres, industry and businesses. The document welcomes the call launched in the declaration signed last December during the International Conference held in Rovereto, within the framework of the Trentino 2013 Winter Universiade. The Declaration advocates the activation of a working group and specific initiatives aimed at fostering the value of the links connecting sports, university, research, innovation and development.

These were also the keywords of the speech delivered by Bouquet. He focused above all on the unexpressed potential implied in sports, not only in sports competitions or to the “simple” sports sector. “If a sport is conceived in a wider and cross-sector way, it can contribute significantly in various sectors: active tourism, manufacturing, computer science, the prevention of diseases due to a sedentary lifestyle, and education. Sports is also a factor favoring social inclusion, overcoming gender, ethnic and economic barriers”. These were only some aspects of sports as a driving force for innovation were debated during the first meeting of the Sports Group of the EU Council, aiming at dialoguing and finding shared guidelines among member states, to foster at European level the economic growth connected with the multiple potentials of sports”.