Coordinator: RWTH Aachen Academic Sport Service (Hochschulsportzentrum der RWTH Aachen)

 

RWTH Aachen (Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen) is a research university of technology located in Aachen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With over 40,000 students enrolled in 130 study programs, it is the largest technical university in Germany. Academic Sport Service is a cross-sectional task of the RWTH and a central service unit of the university. It represents quality and diversity in its offers. Academic Sport Services provides a diverse array of services and programs for the students and staff of the RWTH and University of applied science (FH Aachen), in total about 56,000 and 12,000 staff members.

University Sports Service Profile:

The Academic Sport Service is a central, cector related university department.
The team consists of 11 sport scientists (including the director), 10 administrative staff, 8 facility managers and more than 20 student assistants. There is a Student Sport Commission with 3 student board representatives which represent the interests of students in sport issues and there are more than 70 voluntary sport representatives.

Facilities: 3 Sports hall, 2 Gymnastics hall, 2 Fitness hall, Grass field, Running track, Long jump facility, Discus throw facility, Running track “Finnbahn” (1160 m, lighted, subsoil: wood strips/bark mulch), 6 tennis courts, 6 beach volleyball courts, artificial grass pitch “Soccer box”, all-weather pitch, lake Rur with aquatic sports facility “Wildenhof”, fitness centre, swimming pool

An important part of the Academic Sport Service is a professionally organized event section which organizes 13 sporting and cultural events every year with 6,000 participants, 5,500 visitors and 650 volunteers. Aachen Academic Sport Service with its diverse facilities has a very high reputation throughout Germany amongst other Academic Sport Services. It is a role model for other Academic Sport Services with professional management and high quality equipment, especially in the health related section. The RWTH fitness centre has also a leading role within the national network of “ADH Fitness Centre Network”.

Health promotion of the university

• Health steering group
• Health Day biennial

 

Selected health promoting physical activities:

Between February 2009 – February 2011 RWTH Aachen Academic Sport Service performed the Project: „Health Promotion and Prevention for Students and Staff Members through Sports and Physical Activity“, supported by the German Federal Ministry of Health’s program “INFORM”. Alongside RWTH Aachen Academic Sport Service three partner Universities from Germany (Paderborn, Potsdam, and Wuppertal) took part in the project.

The focus of the project with the target-group of physically inactive students and staff members lay on low-threshold-programs that were supposed to ease the first steps into sports for physically inactive persons. The overall concept considered

–       a close connection of work, studies and physical activity/sports

–       interdisciplinary cooperation

–       evaluation

–       the sustainable long-term implementation of project elements.

The results showed that health promotion that intends to reach physically inactive students and staff members does my no means run by itself. In order to meet the needs of this target-group a lot support, close guidance and specific setting-conditions are required: physical activity must be embedded in the every-day (work-) life and be easy to reach. The threshold must be kept as low as possible.

Especially the project program “Pausenexpress” (active lunch break) proved to suit these premises. Meanwhile it reached approx. 1000 person per week in more than 140 Pausenexpress-classes per semester inside RWTH. Within the national “ADH Pausenexpress Network” more than 30 universities use this concept all over Germany already.

With the project experiences and the out coming result RWTH Aachen Academic Sport Service decided to initiate a European wide project as a role model for third level sport.

RWTH Aachen Academic Sport Service is member of several networks concerning health inside and outside the university setting.