The University of Brighton Sport Management programme is also the first of its kind in the country to receive re-endorsement for General Manager standards overseen by the Chartered Institute for the Management of Sport and Physical Activity (CIMSPA), after being initially endorsed in 2019.
More broadly, CIMSPA has helped sport-related degrees demonstrate not only the critical thinking required from service delivery in a range of environments, but also highlighted how important sport and physical activity are to national and local economies. Brighton's degree programme highlights how experiential learning can be used to develop knowledge, understanding, skills, abilities and behaviours that can be used across a range of employment environments.
The Brighton degree success has been achieved despite major issues caused by the pandemic. With virtually all sports organisations having to suspend operations due to national restrictions, a major challenge for the course was to ensure that, as far as possible, experiential learning opportunities – including compulsory placements – took place.
Dr Marc Keech, the principal lecturer at the School of Sport and Service Management who oversees sport management placements, said: “The challenge for us was to develop a placement which simulated the key elements of our curriculum aligned to the CIMSPA endorsement, alongside those placements which could work remotely, to ensure students still retain the opportunities to gain substantial experience, despite the national circumstances. Utilising national quality assurance standards for the management of community sport facilities and sport development, a range of tasks were developed, such as developing the governance framework for a multisport community club.”