National Congress Sport, Physical Activity and Health

On the 29^th of June, the first edition of the National Congress Sport, Physical Activity and Health will take place at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, in agreement with the Amsterdam Institute of Sport Science. Registration for this event is opened with this website going live.

The congress is organized by the Watertoren (https://www.dewatertorensportenbewegen.nl), the national cooperation platform for all universities in the Netherlands that are active in the field of Sport, Physical Activity and Health with the intention to turn it into an annual event. These include broad research universities, technical universities, university medical centers and universities of applied sciences. The aim of the congress is to strengthen the collaboration amongst those universities and therewith to bolster the multi-, inter- and transdisciplinary knowledge and innovation networks for sport, exercise and health in the Netherlands. 

The congress will entail keynote lectures, symposia, workshops and poster sessions.

Keynote lectures will be delivered by:

• Esther van Sluijs, Director of the Cambridge Epidemiology & Traits Unit, Cambridge School of Clinical Medicine. The title of her lecture is: Mind the gap – delivering on the promise of school-based physical activity promotion.
• Claudine Lamoth, Professor of Movement Analysis & Smart Technology in Aging, Department of Human Movement Sciences, University Medical Center Groningen. The title of her lecture is: Physical activity and aging: Insights from the capability approach. 

The symposia are currently organized by the universities that are a represented in the Watertoren consortium. They will cover a wide mix of topics that refer to the Roadmaps of the Dutch Research Agenda (NWA). These are: 

1. Healthy Generation
   Sport and exercise need to be developed from an early age onward as part of an active, healthy lifestyle to promote the vitality of Dutch society.
2. Exercise is Medicine
   Sport and exercise form an important means of prevention in the aging population as well as an effective medicine for many patient groups and therefore must be promoted.
3. Moving Smarter and Better
   Data and technology are important drivers for the promotion of sports and exercise across the lifespan, for physically active and inactive people, or with and without disease and require smart applications to be successful in this regard.

Participants can attend workshops for acquiring new skills for procuring funding for and doing scientific research with societal impact.

Finally, the congress will provide ample room for poster presentations in dedicated sessions. 

The congress language is English, the language of science and the one preferred by the many international researchers that are active in the domain of sport, exercise and health.

Registration takes place via this registration form. The registration fee for the congress is 150€ (research) and students (50€), and includes lunch, snacks and beverages.