EUPHORIA

For the 2024 Erasmus+ Sport call, the research group Sport Psychology and Mental Support (SPMB) submitted as a coordinator a collaborative partnership entitled “EUropean framework for the Promotion of mental Health in elite sport Organisations (EUPHORIA). The project is led by VUB (prof. dr. Paul Wylleman, prof. dr. Koen De Brandt, prof. dr. Jolan Kegelaers, and dra. Laura Spolverato) and co-funded by the Erasmus+ Sport programme of the European Commission.

EUPHORIA (1/01/2025 - 31/12/2027) aims to facilitate and optimise meso-level whole-environment mental health interventions within European elite and talent development sport organisations. To this end, the project will develop a comprehensive mental health promotion framework, which will offer elite sport organisations concrete guidelines and resources to design, deliver, and evaluate whole-environment mental health programmes.

More specifically, the objective is to co-design a mental health promotion framework, including a self-assessment and benchmarking instrument. This will be done in three phases:

1. Establishing the evidence base: gather the perspectives of organisational leaders and policymakers regarding current approaches, challenges and barriers experienced in the design and implementation of mental health promotion programmes.
2. Concept mapping: through the involvement of stakeholders, we will develop an initial version of the framework.
3. Implementation and refinement: in-depth case studies will be conducted within European organisations to test the relevance, applicability, and effectiveness of the framework.

These resources and tools will be developed, implemented, evaluated, refined, and eventually widely disseminated. The project will provide a direct added value within the EU context by focusing on the creation of a safe environment in sport and the development of sustainable and evidence-based mental health policies in sport.

To address these aims, EUPHORIA brings together a consortium of 17 experts in high performance sport and mental health, representing 6 organizations from 4 European countries (Belgium, France, Spain, Sweden). The consortium includes 3 national sport governing bodies, 1 high-performance centre, and 2 athlete-friendly universities. 

The framework and instruments developed and implemented within this project will allow organisations to optimise their whole-environment mental health promotion policies. 

The EUPHORIA project and its deliverables aim to generate positive impact by bringing direct added value to European high-performance sport research, policy, and practice in the following ways:

• Promoting and increasing awareness on the topic of mental health in elite sports;
• Providing opportunities to develop a detailed understanding of the role of the whole environment for promoting mental health;
• Providing recommendations and enhancing opportunities for organisational policies to promote mental health;
• Facilitating cooperation related to mental health between sport, education and health stakeholders.

"It is projected that over 300 organisational leaders and policymakers can be involved in the different phases of the project through the consortium partners."