Challenge

With this project, Sport Vlaanderen and the City of Leuven want to optimize data collection and knowledge development on sports and physical activity on a local scale using Internet-of-things applications.

Increasing sports participation and getting people moving are important policy objectives of Sport Flanders and local governments. But so far, accurate, fine-grained, local data on sports participation and exercise are lacking. As a result, the impact of certain policy measures can hardly be monitored.

The data are limited to administrative data (on membership of sports clubs, occupation of sports facilities, etc.) and classical survey research on a regional scale, and do not sufficiently reflect real individual sports and physical activity (e.g. non-organized athletes) on a local scale.

This project aims to fill this data gap while also digitizing/automating existing (rather administrative) data streams. With a small-scale pilot project in Leuven, Sport Vlaanderen wants to develop an instrument to map, quantify and analyze sport and physical activity more accurately, better, faster and more efficiently at local level (neighbourhood or district level) in function of policy measures taken or to be taken, so that every city/municipality can develop an 'evidence-informed' or knowledge-driven sport and physical activity policy in the future.