David Crawford Review of Australian Sport

The Independent Sport Panel has released its findings (aka. the Crawford Report) as of 17-nov. A number of people have passed comment on the review findings. ABC sports review broke the story along with several other Australian media outlets. Keane Wheeler of University of Canberra provided comments and some links early on, and Keith Lyons provides a quite comprehensive listing of responses to the report.

More info after the jump.


One of the interesting features of the report is the idea that the current Australian Institute of Sport ought to extracted from the Australian Sports Commission, and be merged with current State sports bodies. The new Australian Institutes of Sport would be answerable to national sporting bodies, rather than a central facility in and of itself.

[pp. 79] With the power of funding NSos (National Sporting Organisations) will choose the most effective agencies to deliver their programs. This potentially includes current providers, (the new amalgamated AIsS), but also other potential providers, such as universities, private operators, and overseas bases. The AIsS would be a provider like any other. If the sport is best served by being delivered through the AIsS, then so be it. If it is not, then so be it. Only in this way can optimal programs be developed.

The initial centralised concept of the AIS is long past its usefulness.

At the very least, the report seems to suggest centralized sporting organisations should be (much) hungrier for their funding. Both the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age (being both Fairfax Newspapers) have recently run an editorial with

Instead of allocating funds as though national worth can be measured by a medal tally every four years, the report says, governments should emphasise sports with high participation levels, to better integrate sports and health policy. Funding should be directed, Mr Crawford said, to ''those sports which capture the country's imagination and represent its spirit and culture'', especially swimming, tennis, cricket, cycling, the football codes, netball, golf, hockey, basketball, surfing and surf lifesaving.

Whilst it was not a major aspect of the report, there are also some suggestions as to what this might mean for the ICT industry and the monitoring and improvement of human performance.

[pp.78] Co-operation with other industries may offer opportunities. In an example of this, the AIS has been working with the commonwealth Scientific and research organisation (CSIRO) on sport science programs in recent years, with encouraging results. Partnerships with ‘Information Technology’ companies may identify initiatives applicable to sports. There are likely to be many other examples.

Sporting organisations, at all levels, governments and communities need to make more effort to identify and take advantage of opportunities across sectors.

Both NICTA and Catapult Innovations provided submissions to the Independent Sports Panel, investigating this subject. Some common issues can be seen in the need for

• Application pull-projects (use-inspired) rather than technology/research push-projects
  
• A development cycle, to jump the gap between research outcome and useful technology
• A mechanism to ensure this process is self-sustaining

These dot-points essentially encapsulate a ``smart economy'' for sport. One can hope the idea takes flight.