Project Information 

The health and fitness sector is a young and vibrant industry, which has previously lacked a coherent pan-European qualification structure that can develop the standard of industry professionals demanded by today's public. An initial attempt at developing an outline qualification structure was made in 1999, but the expertise did not exist then to revise and test the programme, and only a limited number of countries adopted the framework. This was mainly due to the significant challenge of validating the qualification framework within each Member State.

The sector has developed rapidly since then and is now focussed on becoming more professional. There are new demands and an urgent need for a quality based qualification, assessment and verification structure which can be recognised and endorsed throughout Europe.

The Eurofit-QST project has met these gaps by developing and piloting a new qualification framework in health and fitness that includes details of the knowledge requirements and competences required by fitness instructors and managers:

• A European verification system capable of validating and endorsing providers and qualifications against the framework; this includes a database of providers and qualifications endorsed. 
• An outline minimum structure for club certification; a system for tracking Fitness Professionals registered on Nationally recognised databases by providing a search facility with the ability to interrogate the National systems.

^{Last updated 28 Feb 2004}