Components of a successful project

A successful project will start to address the challenges to increasing student participation by identifying the local barriers facing student sport and offering a solution.

This should include being responsive to the demands of participants, providing accessible opportunities for all levels and growing the size of the sport delivery workforce.

A successful project, whether led by a single university, a consortium of universities or a national body, must be able to demonstrate how it will impact on regular student participation (three sessions of 30 minutes of at least moderate intensity per week) in sporting activities amongst the student population. There should be a clear plan for how sporting participation will be sustained both during and post funding as well as how projects could be replicated.

Overall a successful project within this themed round will:

• Ensure at least 80% of participants are HE students
• Be accessible – including to traditionally under-represented groups in sport (women, BME, disability)
• Be affordable for participants (with any subsidised admission part of a sustainable business plan)
• Involve strong partnerships with sport providers and deliverers outside the HE sector, including NGBs
• Have a clear rationale for the activities to be delivered with evidence of how they will meet demand
• Ensure an appropriate delivery workforce including training
• Demonstrate sufficient capacity to be able to deliver the project
• Include an evaluation of the project.

A successful single university project will:

• Be based on student demand, with activities designed to address the findings of consultation with the local HE student population
• Involve other sport delivery providers and deliverers; such as community sports clubs, county sports partnerships or local authorities
• Have support from the Director of Sport, athletic union (or equivalents) and the Vice Chancellor.

A successful single university project could also:

• Deliver either formal or informal opportunities
• Include the purchase of equipment
• Include a modest structural building adaptation to under-utilised space, where it can be proved to be essential to enable the delivery of your project
• Include an activator / coordinator to develop and deliver new activities, as long as the capacity of the workforce can be demonstrated as a barrier to increasing participation of students
• Include a number of sports, but must be able to demonstrate the need for each one, the pathways and exit routes for sustainable participation
• Include volunteer workforce training and development where this is clearly demonstrated as a solution to increasing sports opportunities for students
• Take advantage of under-utilised sports facilities both within HE institutions and the wider community.

A successful local/regional group project will:

• Directly impact on student participation in all institutions involved
• Be based on student demand, with activities designed to address the demand
• Involve other community sport delivery partners, such as sports clubs, county sports partnerships or local authorities.

A successful local/regional group project could also:

• Involve effective coordination between universities, for example for coach, official and volunteer training, development and deployment to increase student participation

A successful national group project will:

• Have identified need through consultation with the sector and be able to demonstrate it will deliver increased student sport
• Involve recognised HE agencies and/or a number of universities for its development and delivery and have a clear roll-out planned across English universities
• Involve relevant sport delivery partners, such as national governing bodies of sport.

A successful national group project could also:

• Involve the development of a hybrid version of a sport, which will increase student participation
• Develop a framework/toolkit and training for participants, leaders, volunteers, coaches or officials, which will have an impact on student participation.