EU Tender

Implementation of the EU Physical Activity Guidelines

On the basis of a proposal from the European Commission, the Council of the European Union adopted in November 2013 a Recommendation (the first in the field of sport) on intersectoral support for health promotion activities (HEPA) (2013/C 354/01) . This recommendation will be implemented through Member States activities, including a network of Focal Points. Monitoring will be based on the EU Physical Activity Guidelines and a set of indicators annexed to this recommendations.

To support the monitoring, the Commission launched a tender for a study in 2014 to support the implementation of the EU Physical Activity Guidelines. The contract (No. EAC-2014-0574) with the successful consortium was signed on 15 December 2014.

The tender group consisted of a group of scientists from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg (Germany), the University of Zurich (Switzerland), the University of Ulster (Great Britain) and Cavill Associates Inc. (Great Britain). Between December 2014 and December 2015, the Group carried out the following activities:

• First half of the project:
  – Draft revision of the Staff Working Document (SWD) annexed to the Council Recommendation
  – Support for the WHO in finalising the questionnaire on the 23 indicators of the Monitoring Framework and in drawing up the planned country profiles for physical activity.
  – Conducting a series of Internet seminars and continuously supporting the Focal Points in answering the questionnaire by telephone and e-mail.
• Second half of the project:
  – Re-examination of the SWD and the questionnaires completed by the Focal Points in order to make recommendations for future revisions of the SWD.
  – To carry out an analysis of the specific situation in six Member States in order to learn more about the background against which the Member States fill in the questionnaires, to receive direct feedback from the Focal Points on the contents of the questionnaire and the procedure, and to collect concrete suggestions for future improvements.
  – Documenting and securing the results of the internet seminars and the telephone and e-mail-based support for further use by the EU and the Focal Points.

On the basis of these activities, the group put together a series of recommendations to the European Commission containing suggestions on how to improve the monitoring framework, questionnaire, SWD and support to Member States in the future.

Brief overview

Period: December 2014 – December 2015
Contact: Prof. Dr. A. Rütten and Dr. Karim Abu-Omar
Sponsor: EU Commission Department Education and Culture