Sport England and Good Things Foundation are working together to understand digital barriers to engaging in sport and physical activity, and how to address them, to reduce inequalities in opportunities to be active.
We are seeking evidence from across the sport and activity sector of examples of actions being taken in relation to reducing digital inclusion barriers.
Recognising its role in tackling inequalities in engaging in sport and physical activity, Sport England is working with Good Things Foundation to understand digital barriers to accessing opportunities to be active, and identifying ways to reduce them.
Through desk research published earlier in 2025, we identified different ways in which challenges in accessing and/or using the internet could limit people’s opportunities to participate in sport and physical activity.
Building on this work, we are now calling for evidence from organisations across the sport and physical activity sector of actions they are currently taking, or planning to take, to help reduce digital barriers to sport and physical activity.
We are keen to gather insights on actions to reduce digital barriers for any population groups, but we also have a particular interest in the following priority groups, who are more likely to experience barriers to being active and to being digitally included:
For this project, we are interested in a range of barriers people can face to accessing/engaging with digital platforms:
Lack of access to a suitable digital device and/or to sufficient mobile data or wifi connection.
Lack of skills, knowledge and/or experience to access or navigate online platforms confidently.
Lack of awareness, understanding and/or capability to stay safe when using online platforms.
Poor design and/or user experience of digital platforms, particularly for people with additional accessibility needs.
The call for evidence has six sections:
This section asks questions about your organisation.
This section asks about any work you are doing or have done to collect data or other insights on digital barriers faced by people in relation to accessing sport/physical activity.
This section asks about any work you are doing or have done to develop strategy or policy that includes focus on digital barriers to sport/physical activity.
This section asks questions about any work you are doing to plan or deliver projects/programmes/interventions to address digital barriers to sport/physical activity, and how impact will be measured.
In this section you can provide details of any other type of work you are doing/have done to address digital barriers that does not fit in the earlier categories.
This section asks questions about what support, guidance or other resources your organisation would need to be able to do more to address digital barriers to sport/physical activity.
Please respond to the questions that are relevant to your organisation, and feel free to leave blank any questions that are not applicable.
Please provide as much detail as you are able, and where available, provide URLs to reports or documents, to support your responses. You can also email copies of reports or other documents to support your submission of evidence.
Where possible, please provide information about how your work around digital barriers relates to the priority groups (older adults, people experiencing poverty, disabled people, people with long-term health conditions), as well as to general or other populations.
If you have any questions about completing this form, please contact research@goodthingsfoundation.org.
The information gathered will be analysed by Good Things Foundation to identify examples of good practice and cross-cutting themes.
Read more about How information from this call for evidence will be usedThe insights from the call for evidence will be combined with data collected from other research activities in this project, and findings and recommendations will be written up in a report, to be published by Sport England.
This evidence will help us to:
All information submitted will be stored securely in line with Good Things Foundation’s privacy policy. Your organisation’s name will only be published in the report with your consent.
Read less about How information from this call for evidence will be used