SPLISS Framework

The SPLISS framework -- Sports Policy factors Leading to International Sporting Success -- is a benchmarking model that explains why some nations win more international medals than others by examining the policies their elite sport systems put in place. Developed by Veerle De Bosscher and colleagues, it treats sporting success as the output of a system that converts financial inputs into results through a set of policy processes, organized into nine interconnected pillars: funding, an integrated governance approach, sport participation, talent identification and development, athletic and post-career support, training facilities, coaching provision, (inter)national competition, and scientific research and innovation. Each pillar is broken down into roughly a hundred critical success factors that can be scored, allowing countries to be benchmarked against one another and against best practice to diagnose the strengths and weaknesses of their elite sport policy.