EUPHORIA: New project for the promotion of mental health in elite sports organizations
The UAB Sport Psychology Study Group (GEPE-UAB), within the framework of GRECSE (SGR 2021-00204), is participating as an academic partner in the European project for the promotion of mental health in elite sport organisations, funded by the Erasmus+ Sport program of the European Commission. The three-year project began in January 2025.
Elite sport organisations hold a duty of care to promote the mental health of all their members. Mental health interventions should cover the whole continuum of care, from promotion to prevention and treatment, to recovery. Organisational level interventions include systematic mental health promotion policies and structured initiatives centred around mental health.
EUPHORIA European framework for the promotion of mental health in elite sport organisations is a 3-year Erasmus+ Sport project (2025-2027) aimed to facilitate and optimise meso-level whole environment mental health interventions within European elite and talent development sport organisations.
More specifically, within the current project we will develop and test a comprehensive mental health framework, which offers sport organisations concrete guidelines and resources to design, deliver, and evaluate whole environment mental health programmes by
The project objectives are:
- Examine current approaches, challenges, and barriers for systematic meso-level MH programmes from the perspective of organisational leaders and policymakers
- To co-design a mental health framework which can assist organisations in the design of whole environment mental health programmes, including a self-assessment and benchmarking instrument
- To implement and test the relevance, applicability, and effectiveness of the mental health framework in the applied partner organisations, through multiple in-depth case studies
This project aims to impact in:
- promoting and increasing awareness on the topic of mental health in elite sport;
- 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;
- and Facilitating cooperation related to mental health between sport, education and health stakeholders.
About the Consortium
EUPHORIA brings together a consortium of experts in high performance sport and mental health, representing 6 organizations from 4 European countries.
- Vrike Universiteit Brussel (Belgium) – Project coordinator
- Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (Spain) – Academic partner
- Institut National du Sport de l'Expertise et de la Performance (INSEP) – Applied partner
- Centre d’Alt Rendiment de Sant Cugat (Spain) – Applied partner
- Comite Olympique et Interfederal Belge ASBL (Belgium) – Applied partner
- The Swedish Sports Confederation (Sweden) - Applied partner – Applied partner
The consortium is coordinated by Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB). UAB team contact persons are Miquel Torregrossa and Yago Ramis.