London Sport spark ‘data revolution’

Original Article published by Connect Sport 

London Sport have launched a groundbreaking new online portal aimed at showcasing data around physical activity and sports participation in the city.

As part of the organisation’s aim to get one million Londoners more active by 2020, the portal will provide “open data, analysis and commentary” to demonstrate how and where funding is best invested.

London Sport’s aim is to use open data to “spark a revolution” and help to reverse the decline in participation in certain locations or sections of society, for example lower socio-economic groups. This will enable provision to be refined and funding more accurately invested.

Already the portal, using anonymised data from programmes administered and delivered by London Sport, has demonstrated how female participation in physical activity and sport fluctuates across London boroughs. Read the article here.

Peter Fitzboydon, Chief Executive for London Sport, said: “Utilising cutting-edge techniques for data analysis is critical to our aim to get 1,000,000 Londoners more active by 2020.

“This new platform is our opportunity to demonstrate to the whole sector how much more we can achieve simply by combining and sharing our data and turning into useful insight, with the same rigour that you would see in the commercial world.

“Through the repository of research and data, it also provides an opportunity to learn from other people’s success or failure, making sure we all continuously improve our work.”

It is hoped that the new level of transparency will focus all stakeholders within the sector on increasing participation where it is most needed. Data analysis experts Epsilon have been appointed to find “hidden correlations” which, according to London Sport, will “aid the sector to change its offers and develop more sophisticated strategies to get people active”.

Fitzboydon added: “We want this platform to be a resource for everybody involved with physical activity and sport in London; we will be making more data, and more opportunities, available in the months to follow and encourage all organisations involved in physical activity and sport to consider how data could help us grow the sector, collaboratively.”

The 61 datasets already inputted to the portal cover topics including active travel, facilities and workforce. Future sport participation, physical activity, active travel, attitudinal and demographic data is also scheduled to go online in the coming months.

You can visit the Portal here