The International Day of University Sport (IDUS) is celebrated annually on 20th September. It is officially endorsed by the United Nations Education, Science and Culture Organization (UNESCO), proposed by the International University Sports Federation (FISU).

Among others, the day aims at confirming the importance of sport in universities and the role of universities in the community as responsible actors for consolidating and developing quality physical and sport education at the service of citizens. Each year on 20th September, thanks to its network of university associations, clubs and partners, FISU and its members and partners will mobilize the academic world. The events include leisure sport activities, competitions, discussion workshops and cultural happenings to citizens of all ages.

Coimbra will celebrate IDUS next Sunday, the 24th, in Choupalinho Park, starting at 10am. The event will include sports competitions between Students Associations and sports activities to all population attending such as: Inflatables, Climbing, Group classes, team games, rope circuit, kayak polo, rowing, canoeing, stand-up paddle, Basketball 3X3 and adaptive sports.

The International Day of University Sport

UNESCO’s Member States endorsed the proposal at the 38th session of the General Conference in Paris in November 2015, and 20 September was declared the International Day of University Sport. This date coincides in most countries around the world with the beginning of the academic year, and it is also the date of the first Student World Championships in 1924.

By devoting one day a year to universities and sport for citizens, the International University Sports Federation (FISU), made up of 167 national university sport federations representing several hundred higher education establishments, aims to draw attention to the key role universities can and must play in order to rise to the challenges of the day, in terms of the acquisition and transmission of knowledge as well as, and above all, social and economic policy at the local, national and international levels.

Stressing the crucial role of universities in using physical education, physical activity and sport to build the skills that define healthy lifestyles, as well as self-confident and socially responsible citizens and considering the common objectives of UNESCO and FISU in fostering quality physical education in university curricula, the International Day of University Sport has been recognised in order to promote the contribution of universities to fostering citizenship values through physical education as an essential component of the education and development of human beings.

IDUS falls within the framework of a multidisciplinary educational project insisting on the need for physical and sport education programmes, sports facilities and scientific studies in universities, with the purpose of fostering social inclusion, minorities integration and anti-doping, combating non-communicable diseases and the ongoing development of scientific research in the field of physical education and sport, taking into consideration the acquisition and transfer of knowledge as well as, and above all, social and economic policy at the local, national and international levels.

 Sport is inseparable from education, both physical and intellectual, as it enables the acquisition and exchange of skills in terms of leadership, that may be approached passively in lecture halls but that must be consolidated through experience acquired on sport grounds and in voluntary associations. Students with a grounding in this form of leadership will tomorrow be capable of developing and amplifying the project ’Education through Sport and Citizenship‘. That is why universities must ensure that the decision-makers of the future who are trained in this may gauge fully the importance of associating physical education and sport with social and economic policies that are not exclusively linked to education. This will lead to the perpetuation and enrichment of the skills which define self-confident and socially responsible citizens (UNESCO: Quality Physical Education (QPE). Guidelines for Policy-Makers). The number of students is rising very rapidly across the world; their social and national origins are becoming more diverse and they are also increasingly mobile, moving easily from one discipline to another, from university to university and from country to country. Universities are taking on wide-ranging autonomy and becoming increasingly international in nature. The population of young adults is tending to isolate itself in a virtual world that encourages individualism; in that context, the concepts of meetings, exchanges and sharing conveyed by sport and voluntary activities are more essential than ever. It is crucial that sport not be taken out of universities and left to the initiative of the private sector on the pretext of liberalism and economics. Quite the contrary, sport must be fully integrated in higher education and research structures, taking its rightful place in multidisciplinary strategies.

FISU, thanks to its network of university associations and clubs and the partnerships that it has developed with the principal international educational, cultural and sport institutions since 1949, will mobilize the academic world for this day every 20 September. The population of young adult students is rarely mentioned in international texts of reference on sport, which primarily address sport in schools. This is why we consider it important to give concrete form to an international event focusing on universities and the role they may play in society through the various dimensions of sport. This is what sets this project apart from the International Day of Sport for Development and Peace’, which is celebrated on 6 April. It is because we wish to highlight the role universities may play in society through sport, whose many virtues are crucial to ’living together’. The activities that take place in the implementation of the project will form part of a common framework based on robust guidelines, recognized worldwide, so has to have an easily recognizable global identity, while reflecting the issues and the university and sporting traditions specific to each of the target countries or regions. It would involve organizing at least one activity by university, in partnership with local authorities, so as to better meet local needs.