Anti-Doping Intelligence & Investigation Project in Europe

The Overview video presented during the Final Conference, showed all the steps that have been put in place within the two-year pilot-project, including actions in the three core activities:

• 4 initial training sessions for NADOs, one online eLearning for law enforcement and 6 advanced workshops with 65 law enforcement and 71 NADO experts attending.
• More than 60 operations launched during the lifespan of the project.  
• A public awareness Campaign “Natural is enough” conducted with 13 million impressions reaching 20 European countries.
• Awareness campaign for decision makers to promote the value of I&I.
• A Final conference embedded in WADA’s 2024 Symposium.

And new tools developed:

• The Sport Investigation Sharing Platform (SISP). A secure communication platform available for all participants from National Anti-Doping Organizations and Law Enforcement agencies.
• Legal framework recommendations
• Handheld device to identify doping substances.

Due to the success of this project WADA will continue building up a Global Anti-doping Intelligence and Investigation Network (GAIIN) in the coming years, with Asia/Oceania region next.

It is important to raise awareness, among decision makers such as ministries of sport, health and justice, and leadership of European anti-doping organizations, of doping in sport and the associated crimes committed.

On an annual basis, WADA will organize a high-level seminar with partners such as Interpol and Europol, which targets such ministries and ADOs. In 2022, we held an information session at WADA's Annual Symposium in Lausanne, Switzerland. In March 2023, we plan to organize a seminar for decision makers to demonstrate the importance of investigation and intelligence gathering. We will conclude the project in 2024 with a conference where all training participants will discuss outcomes and next steps of an international network of investigators, intelligence analysts and confidential sources managers, to strengthen collaboration and exchange of information. More information will be shared on this initiative as the project progresses.

• In June 2022, the project was introduced in the WADA Annual Symposium and had a dedicated session introducing its launch.
• In March 2023, the project had one session during WADA Annual Symposium, presenting a roundtable between 5 panelists from the Anti-Doping world about the importance of investing more in Intelligence and Investigation capacity and capabilities.
• The Final conference took place on 12 and 13 March 2024 in Lausanne, Switzerland and was embedded into WADA’s annual Symposium. Three sessions have been organized. More than 100 participants from the project attended the three sessions.
  • The first one presented the key outcomes and achievements of the project.
  • The second session emphasized the operational aspects of the project with an awards ceremony.
  • The third and last session further developed some key outcomes of the project and its future prospective.

This 2-years project, implemented since June 2022, was selected by the EU following a call for proposals for EU pilot projects for Building capacity to better fight doping in sport in Europe (May 2021, Call reference: PPPA-SPORT-2021-FIGHT-DOPING ; Project reference: 101050036 - Anti-Doping Intelligence and Investigations Capacity and Capability Building in Europe). 

The regulatory framework for this EU Funding Programme is set out in: 

• Regulation 2018/1046 (EU Financial Regulation) 
• Commission Decision C(2021)1658 on the adoption of the 2021 Work Programme for the implementation of pilot projects and preparatory actions in the area of education, sport and culture 

Pilot projects (PP) and Preparatory Actions (PA) introduce new initiatives that might turn into standing EU funding programmes. A Pilot Project is an initiative of an experimental nature designed to test the feasibility of an action and its usefulness and lasts not more than two years. The implementation of the pilot project will take due regard to complementarity with the EU Erasmus Sport programme.

As mentioned in the call for proposals, the main objectives of the WADA Project II CAP BUILDING are: 

• to develop a set of complementary measures and activities that would address the issues mentioned above and that would be concretely beneficial to a maximum number of European ADOs and more globally to the anti-doping system; 
• to allow for ADOs to partner with WADA to conduct investigations, protect whistleblowers and to cooperate on joint investigations with law enforcement agencies and the global network of investigators; 
• to build capacity of the European anti-doping system, reduce the prevalence of doping in sport and maximize the health benefits generated by the practice of clean sport by the European youth.