RIO 2016 KNOWLEDGE EXCHANGE SCOPING PAPER Introduction This note sets out a summary rationale for developing

knowledge exchange between UK further and higher education institutions (FE/HE), peer organisations in Brazil and bodies involved in the organisation of the Rio 2016 Olympic & Paralympic Games and subsequent Legacy activity. It identifies issues to be considered. In previous Games, FE and HE institutions have sometimes been central to pre-Games organisation, Games-time delivery and preparations for Legacy, sometimes not. They are generally more likely to have acted regionally, in relation to proximity to the Games, eg New South Wales TAFE and the Sydney Games, rather than systemically. This changed with the 2012 Games for which a dedicated national unit, Podium, was established1. Podium is the UKs national unit responsible for engagement of FE and HE in all relevant aspects of the London 2012 Games. Its university and college members across the UK are in different ways playing roles critical to the success of the London 2012, individually and also jointly through actions coordinated by Podium or associations such as British Universities & Colleges Sports2. With this innovation, the London Games mark a significant departure in the history of the Olympic and Paralympic Games. Knowledge exchange There is a well-established expectation that knowledge and expertise should be exchanged between successive Olympic and Paralympic Games. Given the huge scale and complexity of the modern Games, and the diversity of institutions involved, it can be deemed essential for a range of channels of knowledge of exchange to operate effectively to deliver a successful Games and Legacy. The means of knowledge exchange exist formally within the immediate Olympic and Paralympic Movements, particularly in the form of communication between an Organising Committee (OCOG) and its successor. For example, the IOC mandates an observation process, eg from Rio to London. There are acknowledged limits to the value of this formal exchange. This is partly because the urban and political contexts of host cities can vary considerably, eg Beijing to London, and partly because official evaluation mechanisms focus fairly specifically on success of the Games. There is also a considerable dependency on each OCOG to collect and hand on full information. Additional knowledge exchange mechanisms have developed around IOC and IPC structures (as the list below implies) and continue to evolve. The channels for knowledge exchange which can operate now include: 1. Organising Committee to Organising Committee (including the roles of the IOC and IPC) 2. Standing Olympic and Paralympic infrastructure, eg Olympic Broadcast Service 3. Olympic and Paralympic sponsors 4. Government to government

1 2

See www.podium.ac.uk See www.bucs.org.uk

5. City to city (including the World Union of Olympic Cities) 6. Sports bodies to sports bodies 7. Movement of expert contractors and employed individuals from Games to Games (notably in specialist roles, eg construction management, Opening and Closing Ceremonies) 8. Further and higher education institutions to further and higher education institutions. There is of course also exchange across these channels. It is important to note that the concept of knowledge exchange between mega-events raises challenges not just of how knowledge derived from one context is appropriate in another, but also of how knowledge exchange is managed across geography, language, culture, politics and so on. Strategic level similarities of policy intention can turn into significant local and tactical differences at the level of delivery. Inter-operability is not a given and isnt always achievable. The question of knowledge exchange management is therefore not subordinate to that of knowledge generation and articulation. Articulating the relevance of knowledge to the specific context of a particular Games is therefore also key, however intrinsically good it may be in another Games context. Provision of an answer from one citys experience which has no corresponding need in another city is unlikely to generate useful mutual exchange. There are sufficient differences in sports systems, political systems, academic systems, and so on for assumptions of complementarity to founder. There is merit in the offer of prior knowledge in that this can prompt recognition of need for new thinking; but, identification of need is a central starting point for demand. Experience suggests that this is likely to take time the distances and differences in local ability to fund early and regular relationship building in the sequence of Sydney, Athens, Beijing, London and Rio, say, is a case in point. The set of bodies which routinely works with all the other bodies above is further and higher education. FE and HE also comprise an immensely effective means of generating long-term memory and dissemination through scholarship, publication, curriculum and teaching. It is more conceivable that a research centre in a university, linked to academic collaborators, will host learning across a timescale, say, from the 1992 Barcelona Games to the initial planning for candidate cities for the 2020 and 2024 summer games, than a given citys political administration. Different countries have diverse education systems and universities and colleges can be perceived as fulfilling different economic or civil roles. It is nonetheless the case that this education activity is potentially or actually global in terms of partnership and knowledge exchange across virtually every field of human activity and at every level. Therefore, what academic collaboration might achieve is longitudinal evaluation of a set of Games tracking particular areas of policy interest, whether impacts on sports development or success of Legacy urban fabric. FE and HE can prospectively be used to help solve some of the above challenges. The rider here is distinguishing between two modes of input: task-oriented consultancy and open-ended research. The mega event is 'seen' by institutions and people at different 'levels' and through diferent lenses - international, regional, city-wide, local borough, community, local estate and so on. Academic institutions can examine these different perspectives and the relationships between them. This requires a combination of 'distance' and 'engagement' and a cross-disciplinary approach - universities are uniquely situated to achieve this. Consultancy will usually be applied to solve a more immediate problem and will usually adopt established methodologies. FE and HE can do this successfully. In research mode, universities have the potential to draw upon a greater diversity of methods and approaches and grasp nuances which may not have immediate resonance in terms of 2

problem-solving, but which may for example enable host organisations and political structures to have a higher quality engagement with a proposition such as city Legacy or interactions between sports development and public health. The learning potential arising from this range of channels is rich, particularly if FE and HE are threaded appropriately through them with the above advantages and caveats understood. Areas for learning, for example, include: 1. Advancing development of support for individual elite athletes and teams 2. Enhancing understanding of the impacts of the Games (and other mega-events) on cities and nations, for example, in terms of city-scale urban coordination, Legacy benefits, management of risk and limitation of disbenefits 3. Communicating lessons from each Games not just on the basis of exchange between immediate successors, but across longer periods including both summer and winter Games and other mega-events) hence deriving knowledge from a larger and richer pool of information 4. Taking understanding into cities (and their nations and sports organisations) aiming to bid for the Games so that their long-term planning and candidacy benefits directly. London and the Rio Games All Games are different. However, there are parallels between Games. They all redevelop a large area within or next to a major city. They all announce something to the world particular to that city and its nation. They all confer a sense of global belonging on the host city and nation. The Games are not just the worlds largest peacetime event, they are in a sense the worlds largest rite of passage. For Rio 2016, it is understood that the aim is for Brazil to be recognised globally as a modern, developed country. The impacts of the Rio Games should add impetus to the aim of ensuring that an increasing proportion of Brazils population is part of that success, socially and economically. The 2016 Games intend to use education and sport to increase economic participation and narrow social gaps. They aim to give a major boost to the development of Rio de Janeiro as one of the worlds great cities and hence also to the identity of Brazil. In this, there are parallels with London. In the modern Olympic movement, the 1992 Barcelona Games are recognised as a step change in terms of a planned, long-term connection between the Games and subsequent Legacy and city development. The London 2012 Games will be a similar scale of milestone in the extent to which Legacy planning has been central to whole Games project in the UK. This primary non-sport justification for the London Games is the transformation of east London, historically the biggest cluster of (relative) poverty and deprivation in the UK. The London Games will add great impetus to a long-term process of regeneration, development and city-scale place-making whose ultimate goal is to enable Londons expansion as a leading 21st century world city - the city of all most like the world in its diversity and where the world comes to do business. For this to succeed, the inclusion of east London into the modern mainstream of economic and social life is essential a process referred to as convergence (the term agreed by UK national, London and local government). The host boroughs in east London, which are immediately adjacent to the Olympic Park and other main venues, have worked in 3

partnership to ensure the generation of direct local benefit to residents from the Games3. This local collaboration within a host city is innovative and replicable. There is also active participation of local universities and colleges in this work as well as sports and health bodies, for example. This London effort has put Legacy at the forefront in a way that is potentially unique in the history of the modern Games. The initial work of the London Development Agency segued into the Olympic Park Legacy Company which will shortly evolve into a Mayoral Development Corporation with greater powers covering a slightly enhanced area. The outcome of seven years of work on Legacy prior to the Games occurring looks likely to be the MDC being able to announce Legacy use of the all the permanent venues in the Olympic Park as well as the Parks Legacy management arrangements. This is in contrast, say, to the aftermath of the Pan-American Games in Rio. FE and HE institutions locally and more widely are positioned to be involved in the follow-through in terms of Legacy land development, employment and training, sport, volunteering and so on. There has been a sustained focus on education and training, including the volunteer development effort, and on these leading to work. There has also been a very strong emphasis on developing sport, not just to bring forward elite athletes for the London Games and beyond, but to use sport as a route to education, social and economic inclusion and better health. A very large scale effort to create the capacity to host the Games has been required, from sports infrastructure to construction to drug testing to support for visitors to media. There is an accompanying investment in expertise and in large scale workforce and volunteer development. Although centred on London, this capacity-building is ultimately national. Londons size notwithstanding, it alone could not have achieved the scale of effort. Evaluation is a further dimension: the Olympic Games Impact studies (OGI) required by the IOC offer assurance to the IOC that their requirements for the Games are met. The OGI are not in themselves a sufficient tool for policy to utilise in terms of assessing how all the investment and effort that goes into the Games achieves the wider impacts desired on a sustainable basis. It is also worth identifying aspects of the London Games experience that may have particular learning value to other cities: 1. Apart from some sports such as football, sailing and rowing, the great majority of the London Games is occurring within London closer to its centre than its outskirts. The impact on the city system is large and intense. Londons ability to deal with this unparalleled challenge will have lessons for future Games. 2. The impact on the UK sports system has also been large. Local, regional and national policy has set out to act at every level from increasing community participation to developing sport in education to enhancing elite performance. The success, or not, of this effort will be instructive. 3. London is part of an open society and a democratic culture. The story of the Games and, in particular, of Legacy development will be recorded and examined transparently, both the positives and negatives. 4. Understanding the impact of the Games on communities and neighbourhoods, both local to the Games and more widely, and how engagement was effected, or not, and what
3

See http://www.hackney.gov.uk/srf.htm

benefits and disbenefits were anticipated firstly and secondly believed to have come about. London has made systematic interventions in this area, not just at OCOG level but through the actions of local authorities and other bodies including FE and HE. There will be new practice learn from here with the potential to replicate innovation in appropriate ways. 5. Understanding the impacts of a successful Games not just on city and national confidence, but on institutional capacity to act there is emerging evidence from London that success in acting at the mega-event scale alters conception of what is possible in terms of future city development. 6. The Paralympics started in the UK with the 1948 Games. Inclusion and disability sport (Paralympic and non-Paralympic) have had much greater emphasis in the UK than in many countries. The UK has significant good practice to share. UK further and higher education is actively contributing to each of these strands. As an aside, these examples together also point to the more general conclusion that a critical element of a knowledge exchange process is to come to agreement on common meaningful questions and challenges and to have mechanisms for dialogue. The IOC process mandates part but not all of this. The IOC does not operate a formal prequalification process, as it were, which would require candidate cities to evolve real Legacy planning earlier than most do, ie before the submission of candidate files not after. It could significantly change the approach of cities if say in September 2013 the IOC were to announce not just the host for the 2020 Games, but the longlist of cities for 2024 who were then all on notice to use the study of the 2012 and 2016 Games to prepare their files for the 2017 announcement. At present, bidding for and failing to win is the nearest cities come to this. All would-be host cities study their capacity to host the Games in line with IOC technical requirements. Fewer plan knowledge exchange or Legacy, dealing with these as a consequence of bidding and winning, not a precondition. Adopting such an approach would provide more time to plan and act on questions which are necessarily longer term, for example generating training, skills and employment benefits at scale targeting particular communities or social groups. Training a large volunteer force can only be done successfully in the latter stages of pre-Games preparation, albeit significant pre-planning is required. London will achieve this. It has been argued though that London did not produce the scale of local employment benefits desired in terms of construction work not least because the workforce is required much earlier in the pre-Games schedule and there wasnt the time available to create and implement the kind of training programme which would have produced greater local benefit as preparation began only well after the success of the London was announced in Singapore in 2005. The point can be made here that if the objective in London had been conceptualised more strongly as renew 2.5sq k of east London including a huge construction programme delivering large scale local employment, as distinct from create an Olympic Park and hand it over to LOCOG in early 2012, then the planning and execution of the mega-project would have looked different. Appropriate evaluation of such questions need not be perceived as unfairly critical so much as contributions to a debate about the winter and summer Games. These can be construed as a huge rolling global investment programme, increasingly directly related to development of a network of world cities across the globe, and how this programme both innovates in itself and sponsors city-scale innovation addressing a cityspecific range of social, economic and infrastructural challenges at micro and macro levels.

Specific knowledge exchange channels Through Podium and its constituent members, for example, the following channels can be used to exchange knowledge, expertise and capability: 1. Training for work 2. Volunteering development 3. Sports development (community, education, club, elite) 4. Impact evaluation 5. Sustainability 6. International partnership 7. Technical, eg drug testing 8. Governance, policy and compliance, eg disability, inter-agency working. There is the opportunity for UK FE and HE institutions to exchange learning acquired from unparalleled participation in delivery of the Olympic & Paralympic Games to the Rio and Brazil contexts; and, indeed, to build partnership which informs Games occurring after 2016. FE and HE capacity and expertise will have played key roles the success of the2012 Games. The contribution of Podiums membership is an exemplar for future Games. Knowledge exchange in this sense can comprise a global rolling programme of actions which develop, apply and share new learning. An additional value of this is that these processes can apply to other mega-events besides the Olympic & Paralympic Games and to other cities besides IOC-designated cities4. Knowledge exchange value Some examples of the value of knowledge exchange facilitated by education institutions whose expertise is rooted in direct experience include: 1. Addressing the challenges of scaling up to Games-time capacity, for example in volunteer or language training 2. Designing programmes which have a wider employment value than just meeting the requirements of the Games 3. Innovating in delivery to achieve scale of outcome cost-effectively 4. Using sport to promote social and educational inclusion and better health 5. Developing an infrastructure of sports participation grounded in communities and local partnerships which can also support the mobilisation and development of talent

An example of joint development between UK and Brazilian universities is www.megaeventcities.wordpress.com

6. Providing methodologically-robust evaluation frameworks in which to understand the value of the Games and Legacy programmes to enable cities 7. (and thereby) Working with public and policy institutions to evaluate Games and Legacy programmes and enhance both the quality of planning and delivery and the long-term value obtained from hosting the Games In certain cases, models and approaches may be directly transferable. In others, experience can be used to inform the development of new locally-sourced models and approaches appropriate to the Rio rather than London context. Conclusion The 1992 Barcelona Games were analogue. For example, security comprised border officers at desks referring to photographs. In London, digital face-recognition technology will be ubiquitous. In 1992, to send a photograph taken at an event to a friend in another country could take weeks. In 2012 it will take seconds and a platform such as Facebook can enable face-recognition tagging as well as simultaneous transfer to hundreds of people. Performance measurement of athletes in 1992 was primitive compared to the sophistication that todays digital technologies permit, eg instantaneous feedback across worldwide networks. To make a phone call from Barcelona to Rio in 1992 probably required booking hours in advance from a fixed point. Only a small number of people could do this at any one time. Today, mobile technologies will enable person-to-person contact between London and Rio on a mass basis. London 2012 will be digital. Rio 2016 will be digital. This is both fact and metaphor. The metaphor tells us that the transfer of the Summer Games between London and Rio will occur in a complex, inter-connected and globalised world. It also reminds us that the Games themselves are bigger, more complex and in full view of many more people. Over and above delivering the worlds greatest sporting event, there is far greater expectation on all Games now both to deliver lasting benefit and to generate less negative impact. Both the aspiration and the requirement for large scale risk management point to the importance of the ability of cities and event organisations to learn from other experience. The quality of the knowledge exchange between London and Rio is one of the factors that can ensure that Rios Games are a great success and also generate a great Legacy. The UKs FE and HE institutions are able to help make this a reality. John Lock Director, 2012 Office University of East London j.f.lock@uel.ac.uk +447885 999766

Postscript: I am grateful for comments to Professors Allan Brimicombe (University of East London), Lamartine da Costa (University of Gama Filho, Rio de Janeiro), Bruno R Padovano (NUTAU, University of So Paulo) and Gavin Poynter (UEL) and to Richard Sumray (visiting professor at UEL).