Erasmus Center for Sport Integrity & Transition

The Erasmus Center for Sport Integrity & Transition (ESPRIT) aims to accelerate the ongoing transition of modern sport, taking its current integrity crisis as momentum for transition.

Internal investigation

To achieve the necessary transition, ESPRIT brings together all relevant knowledge and experience in the field of modern sport within Erasmus University Rotterdam. ESPRIT offers a unique combination of embedded ethics within the very heart of modern sport, together with scientific research to support the challenges modern sport faces. The basic objective of ESPRIT as a transdisciplinary research group is to explore and address complex integrity issues in sport amidst a postmodern world in transition. ESPRIT offers embedded ethics, scientific research, academic education, and societal outreach, building on multiple expert perspectives on sport, to support a responsible systemic transition.

ESPRIT collaborates with the following schools and parties in its programme: ESL (Erasmus School of Law), ESHCC (Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication), ESSBS (Erasmus School of Social and Behavioural Sciences), ECASE (Erasmus Center for Applied Sport Economics), ESHPM (Erasmus School of Health Policy and Management), Erasmus University Medical Center (healthcare and sport medicine), and DRIFT (Governance, Politics, Transitional Design).

Research Document on Sex, Gender and Elite Sport (March 2023)

Winter 22-23, the NL Olympic Committee asked ESPRIT to carry out a meta-analysis on the topic of Gender & Elite Sport. Two ESPRIT researchers, Dr. Åsa Ekvall and Dr. Sandra Meeuwsen, wrote the ‘Research Document on Sex, Gender and Elite Sport’ (download here). The document maps the debate and presents the most actual research findings on the correlation between sex, gender and sport. It aims to facilitate scientifically validated, consistently elaborated policy in Dutch elite sports competitions. 

Meanwhile, the NL Olympic Committee asked ESPRIT to support them in implementing this Research Document, in terms of research and policymaking. These activities are elaborated in cocreation with sport executives and a group of international experts.