Description

The three aims of ProFit were:

  • Promotion of Sports - Within FieldLabs new concepts, products and services were developed that promote sports and exercise. At the same time FieldLabs offered attractive environments and facilities for neighbourhoods and citizens, young and old.
  • Product Innovation - FieldsLabs were an opportunity for international cooperation and a breeding place for sports innovation. New concepts, products and services were tested in a daily urban environment with professional and innovative measurement equipment.
  • Business Creation - In the FieldLabs, stakeholders developed and commercialized concepts, products or services in the field of sports and play. The international network stimulated better use of technology resources and catalyses new business opportunities.

ProFit aimed to innovate existing sports and physical activities by adding new forms of activity and game play, and to support this by developing the necessary equipment and infrastructure. FieldLabs have been developed for physiology and performance-monitoring and for adapting sports, athletics, recreational sport, gymnastics, hockey, equestrian activities, ice-skating, football, cycling, sailing and swimming. The FieldLab setting differed, and for example could be found in a park (green open space), indoors in a business area, or a square in an urban area.

Local governments or operators benefited from a FieldLab located in one of their facilities, where they were given the opportunity to co-create innovative environments and facilities that add value to the user-experience and ultimately the physical well-being of their citizens and their overall quality of life. The FieldLabs were dynamic, in the sense that they were refreshed regularly by new innovative products and services to be used and tested.

 

Results and impact

The ProFit project has delivered Five FieldLabs where innovations for sports and play were developed. A target for the project was to inform 300,000 people about ProFit activities through media coverage (readership and viewership measures: press coverage / TV or Radio appearances). It was estimated that approximately 2,230,500 people were reached through media coverage. 2,804 people participated in transnational events, 2,748 in national events and 11,148 in regional/local events.

 

Type of activity

Programmes promoting activity

Building health promoting infrastructure 

Research and innovation

 

 

Place: Eindhoven and Delft (Netherlands), Kortrijk (Belgium), Sheffield (UK)

Territorial level: Local

Organizer: Sports and Technology Foundation (lead partner), city authorities, and universities

Source: http://www.fieldlabs.eu | European Commission (2016) Study on the Contribution of Sport to Regional Development through the Structural Funds, Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union.