EUSA Institute (SLO)
European University Sports Association (EUSA) is the governing body for university and college sport in Europe, having 45 national university sports member associations. As a pan-European non-governmental organisation, it links national university sport federations, universities, teams, individual competitors, volunteers and other partners throughout Europe.
EUSA Institute is a non-profit non-governmental entity, created by EUSA for the purposes of developing university sports, organizing sports events, carrying out sports activities and projects and providing education in sports at the university level. The main aim of EUSA Institute is to support development of university sport in Slovenia and Europe. It carries out professional, technical and organizational tasks aimed at providing education in sports at university level.
EUSA mission is to maintain and develop regular communication between the national federations; to co-ordinate competitions, conferences, mass-sport-events and other activities; to represent university sport in general and the member federations in particular in relation to various European bodies; to disseminate throughout Europe the ideals of university sport in close collaboration with the International University Sports Federation (FISU) and other European organisations and institutions.
International Sports Press Association Europe - AIPS Europe (MLT)
AIPS Europe is one of the continental bodies with the Association Internationale de la Presse Sportive (AIPS). After being founded in 1976 it currently represents professional sports journalists around Europe, has 49 national associations as members.
AIPS Europe during the past years has been actively cooperating through Memorandum of Understanding with some international federations namely the European Taekwondo Union (ETU), European Fair Play Movement (EFPM), European University Sports Association (EUSA), Special Olympics – EuroAsia.
Back in 2014 AIPS Europe successfully launched a petition with the European Parliament in order to safeguard access for journalists to sports events. The petition was the result of several incidents, mainly in football (UEFA Champions League and the Spanish league). In 2017, a new petition with the European parliament was launched, highlighting two major events where again journalists (radio, TV) found it difficult to gain access to sports events (Euro 2016 and World Handball Championships in France).
Since 1983, AIPS Europe through the worldwide poll held by AIPS (International Sports Press Association) annually announces AIPS Europe athletes of the year for male and female athletes.
AIPS Europe is also active on educational level; at the past they organized Sport Media Summit, held in Budapest in March 2017, topics of the discussion panels focused on media rights questions, the challenge of match-fixing and women in the world of sport media.
Karate Club Hrvatski Dragovoljac (Cro)
Karate Club Hrvatski Dragovoljac was founded more than 20 years ago. In its history the club’s athletes contributed to winning the senior team champion of Croatia six times. They won Croatian championships in cadets, juniors, in men’s and women’s competitions. The club had greatest success at the World Club Championship in Budapest in 1997, winning 3rd place, while our female team won the 7th place. The members of the club as members of Croatian national senior team won 3rd place in the European Championship last year.
Club’s goals are to gather as many children as possible, through our karate schools, to get kids out of the streets and focus them on Karate, one of the best for developing psycho-social abilities, strengthening motor skills, developing good personality characteristics. At present, their karate school, which takes place in 4 halls in 4 different parts of Zagreb, has about 70 children – young athletes, who gradually enter the competition part of karate.
They take great pride that competitors, besides being good athletes, are successful in their education, most of them have managed to finish university, and they provide guidance for athletes at the end of their sporting careers, moving on to sports coaching, refereeing, or management. Karate Club Hrvatski Dragovoljac was awarded many times for successes in the field of sports and as the organizer of many sports events, and is active in other activities outside of competition, recognising its social responsibility.
AZS Poznan (Pol)
The University Sports Association (AZS) Poznan was established in 1919 by the students of the Poznań University (nowadays Adam Mickiewicz University), thus in 2019 they celebrated their 100th anniversary.
Since 1919 AZS Poznań has been one of the strongest sports clubs in Poland. They are proud to have 38 Olympians, numerous World and European Champions and especially the gold medallist of the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000 – Szymon Ziółkowski (athletics – hammer throw).
The Association in Poznań presently consists of two competitive sports clubs and 25 AZS clubs affiliated to the universities and the colleges in the whole Wielkopolska Region. Altogether, they count more than 5000 students and university employees in our ranks. The most popular system of student competition is the Universities Championships of Wielkopolska, held annually in about 60 sports disciplines.
They have vast experience in organizing international students competitions and have already hosted the World University Championships (6 times – cross country, rowing [three times], futsal and canoe sprint) and the European Universities Championships (4 times: tennis – 2009, basketball – 2010, rowing – 2013, futsal - 2015).
The AZS Poland itself is one of the most vital sports associations in the country. During the period between two World Wars it was a forerunner in the development of many sports branches in Poland and greatly contributed in establishing of other Polish sports associations. In many disciplines AZS introduced a number of pioneer methods, 12 in rational training and established first foreign relations in the field of sports as Poland regained its state sovereignty after the First World War.
After the Second World War AZS continued its activity while particularly emphasizing the universalization of physical training of physical training and sports practicing among university students in general. An AZS club almost in every university and college in Poland was established. At this moment AZS counts around 270 clubs with over 42 000 members.
Sportindeks (SRB)
Sportindeks is an organization founded in Belgrade with the purpose of promoting and enhancing university sport, sports journalism, student sport competitions and sporty and healthy lifestyle.
For 5 years, since the beginning of sportindeks.rs website, they have more than a dozen employed journalists and in the opinion of editors-in-chief of major sport media in Serbia (Predrag Saric – Sportski Zurnal, Vladimir Novakovic - Sport klub) are the most important non-formal education platform for young reporters.
In the same period Sportindeks is actively following national and international university sport events.
From domestic leagues, national and international championships, so far they published more than 3700 articles promoting university sport and dual career of athletes. Since 2015, Sportindeks is also covering major international student sport events in the region; the largest being the European Universities Games 2016 Zagreb-Rijeka in Croatia. Sportindeks’ activities include includes education in major sport media in Serbia, and organizing conferences regarding topics important to the development of sports journalism in Serbia.
Since 2014 they organized 4 events, first about the future of sports journalism and new media, second about teamwork in sports journalism, third about women in sports journalism and the final conference had 10 different lecturers speaking about dual careers of athletes and sports journalism. Finally, Sportindeks and their work includes projects for raising capacity of young journalists and in 2017 and 2018 they were granted project budget from the City of Belgrade to conduct our projects.