On 20 October 2022, Federal Ministry of Arts, Culture, Civil Service and Sport in cooperation with SportsEconAustria Institute for Sport Economy organised the EU-wide consultative conference ahead of the 1st European conference on the economic dimension of volunteering in sport.
The focus of the conference was on creating a holistic approach to volunteering in sport with an emphasis on evidence-based policy making.
The conference served as a platform to start a dialogue between the key stakeholders in the sport sector and the policy makers who regulate the sport sector, regarding the economic and wellbeing impact of volunteering in sport based on the ‘Report on economic dimension of volunteering in sport in EU-8 with recommendations to policy-makers’ that was developed by the team of researchers on the EVIS project.
The main objective of the conference was to promote a better recognition of the economic value of volunteering in sport.
Conference was opened by Philipp Trattner, Director General Sport at Federal Ministry on Arts, Culture, Civil Service and Sport. Presentations of research results were given by the experts in the field of sport economy Guenther Grohall and Themis Kokolakakis who led the team of researchers.
Preliminary results indicated an enormous value of voluntary work in the sport sector that can’t be replaced by paid work.
Recommendations to policy makers were presented to 55 participants from 7 European countries. Contributions were received mainly from participants in Austria, Greece, UK, USA, Lithuania, Germany and Croatia. Participants were asked to indicate their level of agreement or disagreement with recommendations to policy makers, or to propose a different recommendation, express their views and opinions on any matter related to the presented research results and recommendations to policy makers. Participants supported the recommendations unanimously.
