1. Identity of the sports professional
A professional identity is what distinguishes professionals: they know what they stand for, what matters to them and how they wish to contribute. Such anchors make them more resilient. They have a better idea of what is valuable and what is not. Sports professionals with a strong professional identity are highly driven and passionate and seek to create added value. Moreover, they are keen to learn and grow, in their profession, in the organisation and in the field in which they are active. Developing a professional identity means developing a vision of one's current profession and how this profession may change. It involves sports professionals' relationship to their profession and to their colleagues in the environment in which they work. By developing a strong professional identity, sports professionals ensure that they can handle, support and justify changes and trends. In addition, it allows them to better steer their duties and their growth in a particular direction and make the most of themselves. They develop practical wisdom, meaning they are able to analyse complex situations, reduce them to their essence and then improvise, deal with conflicting interests or weigh things up in applying the rules. A well-developed professional identity gives sports professionals the peace and resilience they need to distinguish between who they are and what their identity is, and so to recognise what makes others who they are and create added value for both.
2. Research and development
The daily practice of sports science changes and develops all the time. Sport and exercise are increasingly important to society, and increased use of technology and digitalisation is affecting sport, too. The ways in which sport and exercise are organised are changing as well. People used to go to sports clubs to get their exercise, but people now tend to get their exercise outside a club setting, or it is organised online. Sports professionals must accommodate these trends, innovations and challenges. In order to be able to deal with them properly, sports professionals must take a healthy interest in the innovations that are changing their profession, immerse themselves in such innovations and continually work on things that can be changed in their professional practice. Sports professionals must have an inquisitive attitude, develop sports and exercise products and establish new processes in doing so. By contributing to trends and innovations, sports professionals ensure they have an impact on professional practice.
3. Coordination, positioning and supervision
Due to trends taking place in the professional field, the scope of the profession has become much wider for sports professionals. Therefore, sports professionals must be employable in many different fields, in many different roles and at different levels (strategic, tactical and operational). For instance, sports professionals will work as coordinators, mediators, project managers or the persons carrying out the projects. In actual practice, it is entirely possible that sports professionals will play several of these roles simultaneously. This being the case, sports professionals must be able to play all these roles and accommodate all these perspectives to contribute to sports and exercise programmes. Sports professionals must coordinate, position and supervise sports and exercise programmes.
4. Leadership, management and organisation
The sports professional provides leadership to others and manages projects and/or exercise programmes. They encourage and inspire others and make them more highly motivated and engaged, so as to arrive at the desired projects and exercise programmes that will promote sport and exercise. In order to ensure that a project or exercise programme is successful, the sports professional needs management and organisation skills, in addition to leadership skills. The sports professional is able to manage projects and exercise programmes, bears responsibility, is able to make decisions that are supported by others and is enterprising. The sports professional identifies trends in the industry and proactively initiates and organises sports and exercise programmes, getting stakeholders involved at an early stage. For example, this shows in the organisation of sporting events and the design and supervision of lifestyle programmes.
5. Evaluation and advice
Sport and exercise play an increasingly vital role in our society and economy. As a result, sport and exercise now frequently touch on other fields, such as well-being, health and spatial development. In order to be able to contribute to this aspect of professional practice and have an impact, sports professionals must ensure that the sports and exercise products they develop are implemented with a view to the long term. Sports professionals seek to create the optimal impact by implementing sports and exercise products in actual practice. They supervise the actual implementation and gain the end users' support. In order to be able to do so, sports professionals must be able to communicate and present, gain other people's support and analyse. In order to determine the impact of the contribution to professional practice, sports professionals perform evaluations. They collect and interpret information on sports and exercise programmes and issue recommendations on them.