As part of my Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship PLATO, I recently completed a secondment at Sport Ireland, the national agency responsible for the development of sport. This experience was enriching both professionally and personally and was instrumental in shaping my current research.
About Sport Ireland
Sport Ireland plays a central role in promoting participation in sport and physical activity across the country. It oversees the implementation of national strategies, supports high-performance athletes, and funds grassroots initiatives. A key part of its mission is to ensure that policies and programs are informed by robust evidence and evaluation. I was hosted by the Research and Innovation Unit, led by Benny Cullen, which is at the forefront of generating and communicating knowledge to support Ireland’s sport sector.
Policy Insights
During my time at Sport Ireland, I gained valuable insights into the development and implementation of national policies. For instance, I had the opportunity to learn about the priorities set out in the Sport Ireland Strategy, witness a meeting on the update of the Sport Participation Plan, and discuss about the role of the Women in Sport Strategy in addressing gender disparities. These insights helped me to better understand how policymaking works in Ireland.
Research in Action
From a research perspective, I was particularly inspired by Sport Ireland’s pragmatic approach to evaluation. A notable example of this is the development of a dashboard that allows Local Sports Partnerships (LSPs) and National Governing Bodies (NGBs) to track and compare the effectiveness of their programmes. This tool demonstrates how data can be made accessible to support continuous improvement within the sports sector. The Research and Innovation Unit’s work on large-scale studies such as the Irish Sports Monitor also emphasises the importance of longitudinal data for monitoring progress.
Contribution to PLATO
This secondment was a cornerstone of the second PLATO study, which examines the use of policy monitoring and evaluation tools in Ireland and Germany. My time at Sport Ireland helped me to understand how evaluation is approached in different sectors, as I conducted over ten expert interviews with key stakeholders. These conversations provided nuanced perspectives on the use and impact of evaluation tools in real-world settings. These findings will be analysed in the coming months and will form the basis of a scientific publication. The insights I gained during my secondment will directly inform the development of the PLATO Physical Activity Policy Toolkit. You can find more information about this study is available in a previous blog article (link).
Take-home message
For those working in research, I highly recommend seeking opportunities to engage with policy or practice. These experiences can offer invaluable insights that enrich your academic work and may increase its real-world relevance.
For more information on related research, please also visit the University of Limerick’s Physical Activity for Health Research Centre website: http://www.ul.ie/ehs/pafh
Dr Sven Messing is a Marie Curie Research Fellow at the Physical Activity for Health Research Centre, Health Research Institute, Department of Physical Education and Sport Sciences, University of Limerick.
Contact: sven.messing@ul.ie. Research Profiles: ORCID, Linked-In, X, Researchgate
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