Mapping Practical Needs: local focus groups successfully completed in partner countries

As part of the STEM Sports Education project, local focus groups have been successfully carried out in Belgium, Cyprus, Italy and Catalonia, bringing together a total of 46 participants, including STEM and Physical Education teachers, researchers, school leaders and other education professionals.

The sessions set out to explore how STEM and PE could be more meaningfully connected in schools, and to identify practical needs and priorities to guide the project’s next steps. A clear message emerged: in most school systems, STEM and PE are still treated as separate subjects. Yet participants also saw strong potential to bridge the two, particularly through real-life contexts such as health education, environmental awareness, sports analytics, and the use of digital tools.

The discussions surfaced a set of shared challenges across all four countries, limited interdisciplinary collaboration, tight curriculum time, scarce resources, and unequal access to extracurricular STEM opportunities. Inclusion emerged as a central theme throughout, with participants stressing the importance of engaging underrepresented groups, including girls and students from low-income backgrounds. Experts agreed on the need for teaching approaches that are flexible, inclusive, and co-designed jointly by STEM and PE professionals, rather than developed separately.

The insights gathered through these focus groups are now directly informing the project’s next phase, shaping the design of innovative teaching materials and training resources aimed at delivering more integrated, inclusive and engaging STEM and Sports learning experiences for students aged 12 to 15 across Europe.