Sport England Themed Funding - Active Universities

Sport England�s third themed round (after Rural Communities and Active Women) is Active Universities. To be eligible for funding under the Active Universities theme, applications must demonstrate that projects will raise sport participation through addressing specific barriers to participation faced by students enrolled on higher education (HE) courses at universities in England.

Sport England has a target of getting one million people playing more sport by 2012/13. Sport England wishes 300,000 of these additional regular participants to come from the higher and further education sector. Sport England�s aspiration for this themed round is a minimum of 100,000 additional participants from the higher education sector doing three sessions of 30 minutes of at least moderate intensity sporting activity per week.

Projects must contribute to the delivery of this outcome. Applications should demonstrate the opportunities for students to play more sport and how existing barriers to more higher education students taking part in sport and taking part more often will be removed.

If you wish to apply to the Active Universities themed round, you must ensure that your project:

• Is strongly focused on sport for higher education students enrolled at a university 
• Directly addresses our objectives for this round
• Is for �10,001 or over.
  

Sport England are specifically seeking applications from:

• Universities: a maximum of one individual application can be made per university. This can be made up of interlinked components and can include partnership working with local partners (for example; local authorities, community sports clubs). 
• A lead partner on behalf of a group of universities for a national, regional or local project for example a regional HE body, a county sports partnership, or an NGB , which provides a collaborative approach to improving student participation.

Pre-application workshops

Sport England will be running a number of pre-application workshops to provide greater detail on the types of projects we would be looking to fund, along with an explanation on the rationale and criteria for this specific themed round. These will be held on the following dates:

15 April: Etc Venues � Maple House, Birmingham

19 April: The Palace Hotel, Manchester

Sport Across Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent is here to offer advice to applicants on Sport England funding and subsequent applications.

As part of the application process you will need to consult with your Local Authority and Sport Across Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent (SASSOT) regarding your project.

SASSOT officers have received specific training in providing support and advice to applicants to ensure projects have the best chance of being awarded funding, so please liaise with SASSOT before submitting your Stage 1 application.

The deadline for Active Universities stage one applications is 5pm
on 23 June 2010.

If you have a query on the Active Universities Themed Round please contact Sport England on 08458 508 508.

Chris Turner
Club Development Manager
T: 01785 619681

E: cturner@staffordbc.gov.uk