SHAPE - Sport, Health, and the People - A Western Balkan University Network

The project is aimed to build-up a University Network on Sport in Western Balkans, and design joint actions, in line with the European context and EU recommendations, to promote an active lifestyle in the population, and contribute to community life and sustainable development in the Region. To this effect, the project aims to train sport professionals qualified in specific sport fields as applied to the different needs, and promote personal health, as well as common values such as inclusion, equality, safety, or environmental awareness, thereby contributing to community life and to a peaceful social development.This gives sport special relevance in Western Balkans (WB), where health indicators are the lowest in Europe and there are great problems to realize those aspects of inclusion, equality, safety and related social dimensions, that the EU sets as overarching priorities, and are indeed basic conditions for a healthy community life and a peaceful and harmonious social development. The current project is aimed to overcome the limits of isolated actions and promote a collective, comprehensive effort to use the great potential of sport, in its various expressions, to help meeting the health and social needs of the Region and bring it closer to the rest of Europe. Previous and new WB HEIs have joined to that effect in the project, along with two EU Universities which led all previous actions, and other contributing partners. Their strong cohesion and commitment can ensure an effective and efficient action, followed by a wide promotion of the results in the Region at large.