Leeds Beckett University - City Campus,
Woodhouse Lane,
LS1 3HE
Centre for Human Performance
RESPECT is a three-year international, collaborative, multi-agency project that aims to empower the anti-doping community through cooperative actions that bridge the gap between research, policy and practice.
In the past 15 years, doping behaviour research and anti-doping education have come a long way, but these efforts remain largely isolated and uncoordinated.
At the same time, the values and integrity of sport are under attack from the real and persistent threat of doping, across all levels of sport participation. Although sport can unite and strengthen our ties with communities that surround us, it can cause hostility and resentment which serves to undermine cooperation.
Having said this, multiple issues identified within the sporting system appear to have united athletes with a common voice; a voice that is raising awareness of their fundamental human rights.
Instead of focusing on what drives some athletes to dope, this project concentrates on what drives athletes to follow the rules of their sport and seeks to understand what clean sport means to them. At a time when the media is perpetuating the belief that doping is widespread, the voices of athletes need to be heard and this has become a priority for National Anti-Doping Organisations across the EU, who serve to protect the right of athletes to clean sport in their own countries and abroad.
The Approach
The RESPECT project is based on the principle that policy and initiatives should be research-informed and athlete-centred. It will instigate social change and use the power of the collective athlete voice. Athletes will be at the centre of this campaign for clean sport, giving them the opportunity to have their voice heard across Europe.
The project is informed by more than a decade of research, practice and policy making by the project partners in the field of doping prevention. It features an international athlete forum focused on the meaning of clean sport to athletes in the 21st century and an internet-based Clean Sport Knowledge Exchange Platform that will enhance the European sporting community’s capacity to combat doping and strengthen the integrity of sport. RESPECT will culminate in a 10-Year Research-Embedded Strategic Plan for Anti-Doping Education (Clean Sport Plan 2030).
Outputs from the project are currently in development and under review. They will be made available on this website in due course. In the meantime, you can visit the project Clean Sport Alliance Knowledge Exchange Platform for further information.
Twitter: @CleanSpAlliance
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