MOVEment Spaces Platform

Addressing the needs of the growing urban population and relying on the EU Physical activity guidelines International Sport and Culture Association (ISCA) started a new project called MOVEment Spaces to promote and enhance facilities for physical activity in urban spaces.

The two-year project brings together five European cities (Barcelona, Birmingham, Paris, Wroclaw and Plovdiv), five NGOs and experts to collect, share and implement good practices that encourage participation in physical activity in urban setting.
Encouraging partnership between cities and grassroots sport organisations is the key to developing sustainable physical activity programmes.

The project partners will draw on their experiences to show how active spaces can be created – even in busy and densely populated cities like Paris and Birmingham. During the project, they will build the knowledge base, develop online platforms so that other cities and organisations working in this area can learn from each other and take action together. One of the platforms will be an Open Source Innovation Lab to unite interested stakeholders, provide them resources they can use, a platform where they can share their own successes and challenges, and a space where they can build a pan-European network of like-minded partners.

The project will focus on three focus areas: active parks, public squares and open water facilities, but the overarching objective is to build the capacities of stakeholders to carry out urban space physical activity initiatives.

The direct target groups are cities and grassroots sport organisations who are each providing opportunities for physical activity at the local level. By bringing stakeholders from different sectors together to share their experience and best practices, we aim to create dialogue and inspire other local communities to do the same. The local population, especially the less active citizens, will experience higher quality sport programmes in the urban areas they live in as a result.