Sports Universities North East England (SUNEE)
The SUNEE project is the coming together of the five North East universities that have pooled their resources to make a commitment to regional development through sport. The universities (Durham, Northumbria, Newcastle, Sunderland and Teesside) have long since recognised this potential and have worked together to tackle, through sport, social issues impacting on the communities in which they are based.
The vision
In order to transform the sporting horizon of North East England, SUNEE has changed the way in which the universities work with partners to tackle the sports related issues of today and horizon issues of tomorrow.
The vision of SUNEE is for “Universities to work in partnership to transform the sporting horizons of North East England by 2020”
In working towards this vision, the aims of SUNEE are to:
Aim 1 Raise awareness of the nature and extent of university sport with partners and stakeholders
Aim 2 Play a significant role in ensuring university sport impacts on institutional, regional and national strategic agendas
The objectives
In relation to the aims, the key delivery objectives are to:
Objective 2.1 Increase and widen sport participation
Objective 2.2 Support the development of high performance sport in both universities and the region
Objective 2.3 Impact on the community by widening engagement in the community through their involvement with university sport
Objective 2.4 Improve health and wellbeing through sport
Objective 2.5 Enhance the development of higher level skills through sport
The highlights
Since the launch of this groundbreaking project it has a significant impact on students, on the five university partners and on the individual beneficiaries and intermediary organisations involved. The project has utilised the expertise and facilities of the five universities, as well as an ever increasing number of volunteer student coaches, to engage individuals from a variety of disadvantaged backgrounds in regular physical activity.
Other highlights include:
- Recruitment of a staffing infra-structure responsible for the management and delivery of the work of SUNEE
- Securing over £2million of external funding to support the outreach work from agencies such as the Football Foundation, Northern Rock Foundation, Sport England and HEFCE
- Formation of a partnership with Street League, a national charity described by FIFA as the leading development through sport charity in the UK and one of the FA’s national charities of the year 2010
- Winners of the BBC Power of Sport award for our work in the community
- 6500 hours of student volunteering in the last academic year
- A partnership with Ingeus, a national company recognised as a leader in welfare to work reform delivering a health and wellbeing program to assist unemployed individuals back into sustainable lasting work
The future
The project will realise a lasting legacy beyond 2012 by utilising the power of sport to positively affect people’s lives. As such it will bring about a wide range of benefits that positively impact on individual students, the partner universities, young people and adults from hard to reach groups and communities in the region.
Through the project, strong and mature partnerships with a wide range of external agencies and intermediary organisations have been established. The reputation of SUNEE and the universities has continued to grow and is now seen as a valuable and reliable resource.
To continue SUNEE needs to seek further funding which will allow issues identified in our work to date and facilitate the transformation which is already underway by putting in place the necessary infrastructures for the universities sports departments to sustain a more structured and proactive approach to student development and community engagement.
