City of Stockholm is a partner in a new educational initiative

This is a novel approach that seeks to give young sports talents a dual career

The Stockholm municipal website announced yesterday that the Municipality is collaborating in the creation of a new university called Swedish Sports University Stockholm (RIU). It is a support centre which has the ambition to help young athletes get both a sports career and a professional career, diversifying their opportunities in life and giving them recognized and useful skills. The people behind this new initiative are confident that this will foster stronger links between sports, academia and the labour market.

Four different entities are behind this grand project

In order to make this new university a reality, four different institutions had to come together – the City of Stockholm, The Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), the School of Gymnastics and Sports (GIH) and the Swedish Sports Confederation SISU Stockholm.

“I am both happy and proud that we four players together have created RIU Stockholm. In the long run, it will benefit sports at all levels in Stockholm, and it will help to raise important conditions for elite athletes to be able to invest in their sports and parasport in parallel with their studies. Sport is a positive force in society and deserves to have good conditions,” said Karin Ernlund, Sports Citizens' Councillor in the local government.

RIU Stockholm will accept students from both KTH and GIH for further support in their athletic and professional efforts and provide them with modern bases for training. The centre will also teach coaching and leadership giving athletes additional field for development during and after the end of their sports careers.

It is also planned to be a cutting-edge research centre which will study body movement and athlete performance with the goal of finding practical solutions for daily life matters and business applications. This will be possible thanks to the unique collaboration between sports and engineering academia schools.