MicroLearning Entrepreneurship for Athletes (MLEA)

The MLEA project aims to unlock the educational potential of athletes. It promotes education in and through sport with a special focus on skills development. The project will address a glaring gap in the field of entrepreneurial education for athletes in partners' countries and at the EU level in general.

The project's main focus is to promote education in and through sport and to support the implementation of the EU guidelines on Dual Careers for Athletes. The on-demand property of the project is very important to the project since it fits easier into the athletes' busy schedules, let them take control of their learning, and enables quality learning during specific suspensions of in-class educational methods.

The MLEA project is developing a tailor-made, modular curriculum on entrepreneurship for athletes and former athletes. All the curriculum's modules will be delivered by academic experts and recorded. Educational material will follow the micro-learning approach to help athletes make the most of their time and achieve their educational goals. MLEA will integrate gamification elements to increase athlete's engagement and will enable online microlearning on-demand by offering bite-sized, small learning units with the necessary amount of information to help athletes achieve their goals.

The project is extremely important for all professional athletes and focuses on the development of their Dual Careers and time management.

The EU-funded research project is led by the Zagreb School of Economics and Management, and the Center for Sports and Business at SSE together with the Center for Sports and Management at WHU Otto Beisheim School of Management are two Centers of Excellence connected to the project.

Except for the academic partners, the following organizations are project members:

The Croatian Olympic Committee

The Olympic Committee of Slovenia

The Olympic Committee of Bosnia and Herzegovina

The Olympic Committee of Serbia

The European University Sport Association

The MLEA project is an innovative project combining both research and education. Our ambition is that this is a first cornerstone towards a larger international and research platform focusing on dual careers.

Nick Andersson

Director for Internationalisation, CSB

The MLEA's main deliverables and intellectual outputs are:

- New tailor-made, modular curriculum on entrepreneurship for athletes and former athletes

- Recorded online educational micro-learning course on entrepreneurship

- Developed and ready to use MLEA learning space/website

It is known that those relatively young people end their sports careers, and very often do not have adequate skills and knowledge that would allow them to develop equally successful business careers, so their potential often remains underutilized, which is a missed opportunity for them as individuals as well as for the community.

Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic

Former President of the Republic of Croatia

Read more about the MLEA project on their official website here.