An update on the project so far

The first meeting of the I-PARC project happened at the 23rd annual congress of the European College of Sport Science in Dublin,  July 2018. This meeting included members of the project team,  research collaborators and acted as a pre-project meeting in order to plan the key aims and objectives of I-PARC, which officially started in September 2018. Members from various organisations, including research institutes (UL, UU, WIT and University of Sydney), Department of Health, Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport, Department of Education and Skills, Sport Ireland, and Health Service Executive were represented.

This was followed up by another meeting with members of the project team and research collaborators (Prof. Adrian Bauman and Prof. Nanette Mutrie MBE) at the 7th International Society for Physical Activity and Health Congress in London, September 2018. This meeting focused on how best to evaluate different interventions for improving physical activity levels in a standardised way and how to better understand the barriers and facilitators for successful implementation of these interventions.

Since the pre-project meeting, the project team have met five times where I-PARC is beginning to understand how to successfully develop and run a collaboration that aims to understand how to implement effective interventions for promoting physical activity in Ireland. This has led to the creation of an I-PARC knowledge translation plan, a Practitioner Advisory Group and the first version of a standardised framework for evaluating physical activity interventions.

The first version of the standardised evaluation framework is currently being revised, with feedback and recommendations provided by the research advisory panel and practitioner advisory group. Keep an eye out here or by following the I-PARC twitter page (@IPARC_1) for project outcomes and updates including practitioner advisory group and research advisory panel meetings, symposiums on evaluation and implementation, conference presentations and more.

Thank you for reading,

I-PARC team