Researching emerging forms of employment in sport: the EU funded project FORMS is moving forward
The traditional permanent and fixed-term contract is becoming less and less relevant in sport and many forms of employment relationships are being chosen, including part-time, temporary agency, ‘employee sharing’, casual contracts, portfolio careers and self-employment. And COVID-19 may quicken the trend, the FORMS project provides the opportunity to examine its impact in more detail.
FORMS is funded through the EU’s Erasmus+ Sport programme and led by the European Observatoire of Sport and Employment (EOSE). This European project is to analyse the news forms and patterns of employment in the sport sector in Europe, with the aims of helping sport organisations to assess their potential advantages and to pass them on to the different stakeholders within those organisations. On 14th of April, the first meeting for the FORMS project was successfully held online despite COVID restrictions.
This kick-off meeting gave the different partners the opportunity to develop a collective understanding of the project and its requirements, as well as to share their own experience and knowledge in order to plan the research phase and identify potential challenges and solutions.
Through 5 national workshops, the different partners will compile employment statistics, research new forms of employment in sports and related sectors and work in close collaboration with employers and other relevant stakeholders. Their research will also lead to the implementation of a Compendium of Good Practices, including a series of recommendations.
Thanks to this new EU project, LUNEX University will work on a unique 2-year partnership with partners in France, Belgium, The Netherlands and Portugal.
More information about this project and the full list of partners can be found on our previous article.
Featured image: Members of the FORMS Research project