Image: Mattias Pettersson
At Umeå University you can prepare yourself for life after your sports career while still being active in competitive sports, so called Dual careers.
Umeå University was actually the first Swedish university to introduce a policy for combining competitive sports and academic studies back in 2007. In 2015 Umeå University became one of the first three National Sports Universities.
According to the university policy, if you are a student in competitive sports you can have your studies customized to your specific conditions as an elite athlete, irrespective of your sport and choice of studies.
In order to do this, you as a student engaged in competitive sports need to sign an agreement with the university through Umea School of Sport Sciences. In the agreement yours and the university´s obligations are stated.
International students who compete for sports associations in the vicinity of Umea and international students who are admitted to one of Umea School of Sport Sciences’ competence centers (cross-country skiing, orienteering, ski orienteering, track and fields or badminton) have the same opportunity to sign elite sports agreements as Swedish elite sports students.
Agreement Dual career
International Specialised Sport Federation Certificate
To sign an elite sports agreement, you need to:
- Selected in the Swedish junior or senior national team.
Competes at a high international level in an individual sport.
- Plays team ball sports in the highest division at national or international senior level.
- Is identified by or participates in the national team's development activities.
- Can in the foreseeable future prospectively and realistically take a place in a senior national team or compete at a high international level.
- Individual athletes who competes at the lowest national championship level**.
- Team ball athletes who play in the highest or second highest national division/ series, given that there are at least four existing divisions/series.
- Head coach for individual elite actives or elite teams. Captain/coach for national junior- or senior teams.
- Referee at national or international level.
** Given that the championship has required a qualifying procedure and/or that the active athlete belongs to the championship's so-called elite class, as in e.g. shooting
The Swedish University of Agricultural Science (SLU Umeå) also offers elite sports agreements for students in the Forest Science program. To be able to do this, you must sign an agreement with the Faculty of Forest Science at SLU. The agreement specifies both the university's and your own commitments. Please contact SLU Umeå for more information.
