In January 2026, the SAFE HARBOUR Project marks one year into its implementation - 12 months in which SAFE HARBOUR has made substantial progress in strengthening safeguarding responses across European sport. 

The project officially began in January 2025 with its first in-person meeting in Brussels (Belgium), building on strong commitment from the project’s outset, the consortium has continued to strengthen cooperation through regular meetings, expert exchanges, peer-to-peer discussions, and thematic seminars. These exchanges have addressed organisational readiness, barriers between policy and practice, and the importance of multi-stakeholder and cross-sectoral cooperation.

In this context, the second in-person consortium meeting, held in October 2025 in Bucharest (Romania) enabled partners to reflect jointly on the GAP analysis, explore stakeholder roles and responsibilities, and initiate discussions on shared tools, including a common classification approach to safeguarding concerns and violations. The meeting also provided strategic direction for the development of future frameworks and cooperation mechanisms at European level, as well as laying the foundation for the European Network for Safe Sport.

Accordingly, the consortium has worked collectively through an evidence-based approach to develop a shared understanding and assessment of safeguarding practices and gaps across Europe. In merit, the SAFE HARBOUR GAP Report was successfully published in December 2025, and it provides a consolidated overview of existing safeguarding procedures, reporting mechanisms, and organisational capacities across partner NOCs and Federations. While confirming encouraging progress - such as the widespread presence of safeguarding policies and officers - it also highlights persistent challenges related to capacity, leadership, legal complexity, and the need for more harmonised classification, reporting, and case management approaches, among other measures. Together, these findings establish a solid evidence base to guide the project’s next steps, moving from mapping gaps to shaping solutions.

Beyond the core consortium, the first year of SAFE HARBOUR has gained high-level visibility within the Olympic Movement and European institutions, as well as an increased engagement from the wider European sport community, at large. Remarkably, two Newsletter have been published while an additional number of European NOCs have formally expressed their wish to join the project as observers, reflecting a shared recognition of its relevance and added value, while preparing the ground for broader uptake and alignment of safeguarding practices across Europe. The growing demand for observer participation underlines SAFE HARBOUR’s role as a unifying initiative within the Olympic Movement and reinforces its ambition to foster a truly European approach to safeguarding in sport.

With strong evidence base and an expanding community of engaged stakeholders, SAFE HARBOUR now moves decisively into its next phase: from assessment to implementation at the European and national levels. Building on the state-of-play analysis, the project will focus on the completion of the stakeholder database-mapping and classification tool; accordingly on the co-drafting of a European Response Framework - a shared advisory model aligned with IOC safeguarding standards and adapted to Europe’s legal and institutional landscape. In parallel, partners will begin developing tailored national safeguarding strategies, translating the European framework into concrete procedures and actions suited to their specific contexts. This phase will be accompanied by continued capacity-building, trainings and awareness-raising activities, ensuring that the frameworks developed are not only theoretically sounded, but effective in practice.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON THE SAFE HARBOUR PROJECT   

The SAFE HARBOUR project, short for “Strengthening Response Mechanisms for Safeguarding in European Sport”, is a 30-month project co-funded by the European Union through the Erasmus+ Sport Programme 2024. Coordinated by the EOC EU Office, the consortium includes Thomas More and Asser Institute as experts on safeguarding, human rights and law, 2 International Federations (International Biathlon Union and International Ice Hockey Federations), and 20 National Olympic Committees (Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Germany, Hungary, Kosovo, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Montenegro, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia). Additionally, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is involved as an outside resource.

The project seeks to strengthen the capacity of European NOCs and Federations to address safeguarding concerns by identifying gaps, developing a European Response framework, and fostering collaboration. This framework will be adapted to national contexts, complemented by training and awareness initiatives to enhance safeguarding measures at both national and European levels. Therefore, SAFE HARBOUR aims to equip partner NOCs and Federations with the tools and confidence to implement effective safeguarding measures while establishing a robust support network for Safeguarding Officers and laying the groundwork for a future IOC Regional Safeguarding Hub.