A popular strategy for activating the urban population physically is to provide informal outdoor sport and recreational spaces. However, building an infrastructure does not assure physical activity among the wider population. For instance, girls tend to be underrepresented at public sport places. To create more equal physical activity opportunities in public space, we need to uncover and interpret the barriers. Therefore, outdoor sport and recreational spaces are interesting to examine, as they provide a possibility to understand gender in relation to norms, activity, and public space. The project Equalizer - a tool for equal and inclusive activity places deals with the perspectives of gender, place, and physical activity to create changes in the use of public informal outdoor sport and recreational spaces. This paper aims to discuss the experience-based, participatory method of disturbances used in the Equalizer project and some of the central findings and solutions. The findings indicate that the barriers for engaging in physical activity at informal outdoor sport and recreational spaces are multi-faceted, as are the possible solutions to overcome the barriers and open up the places to more people. We identified four types of solutions based on the identified barriers: spatial/physical, organisational/support-related, activity-related, and norm/representation-related.

During the last 20 years, Malmö has developed into an internationally recognised skateboarding destination and a valued skateboarding place for local and regional skaters. In contrast to many cities, skateboarding and skateboarders have been appreciated and embraced in public planning and development. The aim of the paper is to discuss the development and identity of Malmö as a skateboarding city through the lens of the concepts of placemaking and value co-creation, and—not least—through the narratives of six persons with different relations to skateboarding and Malmö. The paper shows that the City of Malmö has engaged with local skateboarding communities through several initiatives that have fostered a collaborative relationship. The non-profit association Bryggeriet, a skateboard high school, an active skateboarding community, and the City of Malmö are all involved in the placemaking and co-creation of Malmö as a skateboarding city. The city's approach to skateboarding involves a bottom-up strategy, engaging non-experts in the development of spaces, reflecting a shift from traditional top-down models towards a co-creation model in order to create synergetic outcomes. Malmö's transformation into a skateboarding city is characterised by the integration of skateboarding into the urban fabric, showcasing a welcoming attitude. The paper underscores the dynamic interplay between physical, imagined, and lived spaces in urban skateboarding culture. However, it also demonstrates how a successful and professionalised model for introducing the skateboarders’ interests into the corridors of power risks undermining the link to, and the engagement of, the new generation of grassroots skaters, and maybe also the edgy, rebellious character of skateboarding.

Under sommaren är det säkert många som ha rnjutit av den underhållning som europeiska elitidrottare bjudit på, inte minst under friidrotts-EM och fotbolls-EM. På tal om elitidrottare så är det nog också många som lagt märke till att kritiken mot hur svensk elitidrott bedrivs har varit betydande detta år. 

Utvecklingen av svensk sport management som såväl utbildnings- som forskningsfält har varit markant de senaste decennierna och pågår i allra högsta grad fortfarande. I detta kapitel beskriver vi denna utveckling. Vad som ingår i fältet sport management är dock en diskussionsfråga. Vi har valt att avgränsa det utifrån de fyra verben planera, organisera, leda och utvärdera, vilka hämtats från en trilogi om svensk sport management (Bäckström m fl 2018, 2019, 2020). För att illustrera svensk sport managements utveckling redogör vi för hur sport managementutbildning tar sig uttryck, då detta säger en del om hur vi ser på ämnesområdet i Sverige. Därefter redogör vi för forskningsfältets framväxt med särskilt fokus på ett urval av avhandlingar, och annan forskningsproduktion. Avslutningsvis belyser vi hur svensk sport management förhåller sig till internationell dito. Att sätta genomgången i ett internationellt perspektiv blir ett sätt belysa det särskilt svenska.

The development of Swedish sports management as well as the field of education and research has been significant in recent decades and is still ongoing to a great extent. In this chapter we describe this development. However, what is included in the field of sports management is a matter of debate. We have chosen to define it based on the four verbs plan, organize, lead and evaluate, which are taken from a trilogy on Swedish sports management (Bäckström et al. 2018, 2019, 2020). To illustrate the development of Swedish sports management, we describe how sports management education expresses itself, as this says something about how we view the subject area in Sweden. Next, we report on the growth of the research field with particular focus on a selection of dissertations and other research production. In conclusion, we highlight how Swedish sports management relates to international ditto. Situating the review in an international perspective is a way of highlighting the particularly Swedish.

Voluntarily organized sport is the cornerstone of Swedish sports and has an important societal role. In this chapter, the Regional Sports Confederation and Sports Education Skåne, which is the gathering body of the non-profit sport clubs in the region, represents the voluntary, non-profit sector. The Leisure Department, City of Malmö, represents the public sector. The football club Malmö FF represents the for-profit sector, despite not being a completely commercial club. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews and analysis of documents.

The three sectors have overlapping interests and a lot to gain from extended cooperation and knowledge transfer to bring about change. All our informants state a clear awareness of the importance of sustainability and highlight sustainable development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) at the leading level of their organizations. However, their capacity and incentives to act differ, partly due to each sectors’ specific logics. Malmö FF, strongly affected by commercial logics, stands out as the organization most active in realizing the SDGs. The Leisure Department, limited by political requirements, works hard to handle basic political requirements with an ambition to do good and even be a role model among municipalities. For the sports movement, the possibility of collective actions is challenged by voluntarism and the strong autonomy of sports clubs. Perhaps it would be logical to argue for a stricter control of the sports clubs’ operations to ensure proper handling of sustainability issues, but according to the Swedish sport ideology, the incentives should rather be created from the bottom-up.

The presented report is part of the Sustainable Sport Management (SSM) Project and describes the process and results of work package 2 (WP2). Accordingly, it presents the deliverables D2.1, D2.2, D2.3, D2.4 of the project. These deliverables focus on SSM curricula mapping and their alignment with the sustainable strategies of sport organisations. To examine this issue, an online survey was conducted among 76 representatives of higher education institutes (HEI) that offer undergraduate and graduate sport management programmes. In total, respondents from 21 countries in Europe and the USA are included in the survey. Furthermore, five focus groups were conducted and five sport management curricula were scrutinised and presented in this report. 

Key findings: 

• The examined curricula showed most connection with socially oriented Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), compared to a current underrepresentation of environmental goals. • Most students will encounter teaching related to sustainability during their education as an integrated part of different sport management courses. 42% of the examined programmes offer one or several specific course(s) or module(s) that relates to sustainability. • The results highlight that the personal interest of academic staff is very important when introducing sustainability as a topic in a study programme. • To further the integration of sustainability in curricula, a clear understanding, definition and structure of sustainability is of importance as well as the representation of all 17 goals. • Academic staff must be introduced to education and teaching tools related to sustainable development to further develop knowledge and implementation. • A continuous negotiation between top-level decision-makers and academic staff is necessary for a long-lasting implementation in a curriculum. • Adequate funding is also crucial to include sustainability in a curriculum, since a lack of resources (money and time) is one of the major obstacles to implement sustainability. • It is advised to integrate sustainability competences like interpersonal thinking, values thinking, future thinking, etc. in the programme design. 

Sports can strengthen social inclusion and tackle various economic, social, and environmental challenges, bind individuals and communities together and promote objectives such as health, education, climate action, sustainability, and social development. Nonetheless, organised sport at the grassroot level in Europe is facing severe challenges: declining membership rates, reduced levels of physical activity among adolescents and difficulties in recruiting volunteers. Sport organisations, in particular in the non-profit sector and with limited resources, are struggling to find time and resources to create new sustainable, inclusive and innovative ways to work. 

The Erasmus + project CHANGE – Cooperation for Change Management and Innovation in Sports (CHANGE) has been created to equip sport’s governing bodies, sport organisations, and sport leaders with new, innovative, and sustainable tools to support sport at the grassroot level. Coordinated by ENGSO, it consists of eleven partners from nine countries: 1) research (Malmö University & EASM), 2) sport organisations (UFEC-Catalonia; Basics Sport Club, Belgium; World Snowboard Federation, Austria; Latvian Sports Federation Council; DIF, Denmark; and Opes, Italy) and 3) experts in the field of sport and digitalization, inclusion/engagement and sustainability (SandSI, N3XT Sports and ENGSO).  

Within CHANGE, the Department for Sport Sciences at Malmö University is responsible for background research regarding change management and innovation in contemporary grassroot sports in Europe. In this report, we summarise research activities carried out in 2023 and insights from 3 workshops with stakeholders from sport organisations and academia. 

The overarching research questions in this report are: 1) What challenges are the grassroot sport movement/organisations facing today? 2) Are the grassroot sport organisations equipped to handle the challenges? Do they have change readiness? 3) How can we understand the results?