Final phase reached in the ONSIDE project

The European Handball Federation continued its support of the European Union-funded project ONSIDE by joining sporting federations and associations across Europe at the initiative’s most recent meeting which took place via video call last week.

EHF Beach Handball Manager Ivana Jelić and Vincent Schweiger, from the EHF’s Competence Academy and Network, joined delegates, including the European Table Tennis Union, the Dutch Olympic Committee and European Athletics, to hear the latest developments.

Despite the lockdown measurements in place across the world given the Coronavirus pandemic, the ONSIDE Project continues in a positive path.

Among the main points on the agenda was the new Occupational Standards for sport officiating, defining for the first time at the European level generic skills and knowledge common to all sports. This will be a valuable document for the future of training and development of sport officials. Following an intense period of development and consultation the standards will soon be ready for publication. 

Geoff Carroll, EOSE Skills Development Manager, led the session to update the partners on the latest feedback from the external consultation which gathered responses from different sports and countries. Decisions to finalise the standards were taken with valuable inputs from all partners.

Sports Officials UK is the lead partner for the development of the education outputs in the ONSIDE project. This will include an Education Handbook and six new innovative e learning courses. Janie Frampton and Julia Lee led this session which focussed on showcasing the functionality of the e-learning platform.

The meeting was again hugely beneficial from the EHF’s perspective.

Jelić told eurohandball.com: “We are glad to have made such great progress in the project and we are looking forward to sharing this platform with our stakeholders in the future.”

The ONSIDE Project will officially finish in December 2020 and a full review of the EHF’s involvement will be published in early 2021.

Those involved in the ONSIDE project's online meeting wave to the camera

About the ONSIDE project

The ONSIDE project aims to research and define the concept of sport officiating in Europe, develop occupational standards to outline generic skills and performance requirements, and finally, create innovative education products for both face-to-face and online.

The ONSIDE project is co-funded by the European Commission under the Erasmus+ Collaborative Partnerships in Sport programme.

All project partners: European Observatoire of Sport and Employment (EOSE), Sports Officials UK (SOUK), Association Française du Corps Arbitral Multisports (AFCAM), European Handball Federation (EHF), European Table Tennis Union (ETTU), European Athletics, SportMalta, Dutch Olympic Committee, Dutch Sports Federation (NOC*NSF), Romanian Football Federation (FRF), British Wheelchair Basketball, National Sports Academy Vassil Levski.