Massive participation on Wednesday 22nd April of Inno4Sports partners for the meeting that took place virtually due to the pandemic emergency. Although it was not possible to meet in the lovely polish city of Łódź, where the meeting was originally planned, the consortium had a very fruitful online interregional event, working successfully on the exchange of good practices and the project's next steps.

“COVID-19has broke in the agenda of Inno4Sports and it will surely influence sport sector in the following months”, affirms Giuseppe Caprara, Innovation Manager at IBV.

The partners agree that the major impact will be on gyms, physiotherapists and other wellbeing services offered face to face, on remote (physical) education and play but above all on sports events, sport tourism, experience economy and fan engagement, that means billions of lossess in the near future.

“That is why we are working around a possible strategy that includes common actions on CoronaVirus”, says Enrique Alcántara, head of Innovation in Sports at IBV. “Consequently, the formalization of the action plans will be influenced by the pandemia”, continues.

Alcántara underlines that Valencian Community has learnt a lot from Inno4Sports and the experience will be an useful opportunity to booster regional policies in the future. “We Learnt in Lapland (tourism) and in Eindhoven (high-tech) that cross sectorial sports innovation projects have a high impact on social and economic aspects”, he states.

Inno4Sports is bound to end the phase one, that lasted for two years, in November 2020, opening the phase two that will include implementation on the action plans. Most probably, the calendar will imply some changes after COVID-19.

This will possibly affect also dissemination events, such as the  EU Week of Regions, in which Inno4Sports plans to participate with a stand. The European Week of Regions and Cities is an annual four-day event during which cities and regions showcase their capacity to create growth and jobs, implement European Union cohesion policy, and prove the importance of the local and regional level for good European governance. At the moment, it will take place on October 2020 and it will be a perfect stage for Inno4Sports as a leader of sport innovation in Europe.

At this stage, to look over COVID pandemia is fundamental for any future action. That is why Inno4Sports project partners, together with ClusSport groups, will organize a webinar in May, on “New sport business in post corona economy”.

“We don’t knwow what will the future look like and how to prepare for it, but Inno4Sports will surely work hard on innovative solutions”, concludes Caprara.

Follow Inno4Sports project at https://www.interregeurope.eu/inno4sports/