Summary Report: EACEA/ERASMUS+ Sport “EUPASMOS PLUS” project, 2019 – 2021
“EUPASMOS Plus” project aimed at implementing a harmonised EU sedentary behaviour, physical activity, and sport monitoring system. This system supports the Member States, the European Commission, the World Health Organisation (WHO), and other relevant organisations in the design, promotion, implementation, and surveillance of effective evidence-based HEPA and sports policies and strategies across different governance levels.
The target group, inactive Europeans, was chosen in different countries within the WHO European region. Due to the new monitoring system, Member States and European Institutions can formulate better policies to increase physical activity in the adult population.
The innovative part of the project included several additional features such as the extension to other population segments, namely seniors and people with disabilities (whenever possible), as well as include physical activity determinants in the monitoring system.
The EUPASMOS Plus work programme included all appropriate phases: preparation, implementation, monitoring, evaluation and dissemination. The work programme was implemented in a good quality in all partner countries including Republic of North Macedonia.
Based on the extensive literature review developed by EUPASMOS that identified the existing monitoring systems and the methods available to measure sedentary behavior, physical activity, and sport prevalence in EU Member States, a new monitoring framework was developed describing the project implementation, data collection methodology, and key results expected.
The EUPASMOS Plus project concept, planning, and development was created in close collaboration with the EUPASMOS project partners, and the quality control measures were of good quality. Partners have established internal communication channel-sharing channels for documents.
The project team included an appropriate mix of participating organisations with the necessary profiles throughout the whole project so that all aspects of the project could be delivered. The EUPASMOS Plus team was allocated to the different work packages, being responsible for specific roles.
The WHO European Regional Office team gave additional support to the tasks developed. The major tasks developed included:
- coordination and communication with all partners and relevant stakeholders;
- project implementation control, assessment of progress towards the objectives, and
- completion of milestones;
- organisation of meetings in collaboration with the project partners;
- Discussion of relevant issues, planning, and evaluation of the work packages; adjustment of the project phases to threats and unforeseen events; administrative reporting to the Agency; and all management activities to ensure project success.
The staff remained stable during the implementation of the project, which added an advantage to the delivery of results. The entire partner has organized meetings with the project team and had daily email and phone communication with national and international partners to guarantee high quality during the project implementation.
Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the expected impact was delivered to all participants. Major sedentary behaviour, physical activity, and sport participation results from each partner are expected to be presented on the website, including in a geo-reference perspective. However, this was not yet available at the moment of the present evaluation. The extensive work developed by the project partners gave support to the creation of this new EU-validated, reliable, and comparable sedentary behaviour, physical activity, and sport surveillance mechanism which can work complementarily to the Eurobarometer and support EUROSTAT surveys on physical activity and health.
The project had a relatively important impact on participants and the participating organisations throughout the whole life cycle of the project. The measures aimed at sharing the outcomes of the project within and outside the participating organisations were disrupted due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
EACEA/ERASMUS+ SPORT
European Commission