SPLISS Framework
Also known as: Sports Policy Factors Leading to International Sporting Success, Nine Pillars Model, Elite Sport Policy Benchmarking, De Bosscher Nine Pillars
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.
Key highlights
- Provides a comprehensive, common structure -- nine pillars and ~100 factors -- for describing and comparing whole elite sport systems.
- Shifts attention from raw spending to the efficiency with which inputs are converted into sporting outputs.
- Enables international benchmarking and policy learning, letting nations see which levers high-performing systems pull.
- Grounds elite sport policy debate in specified, measurable indicators rather than impressionistic comparison.
Intuition
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How it works
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When to use it
Use the SPLISS framework when you want to analyze, benchmark, or improve a nation's elite sport policy in a structured, comparative way, and when the question is why some systems convert investment into international success more effectively than others. It suits national sport agencies and researchers seeking to diagnose strengths and weaknesses across the full span of elite sport policy, to learn from higher-performing comparators, and to justify or target investment. It is appropriate where comparable data on policy inputs, processes, and outputs can be assembled across nations. It is less suited to explaining the success of an individual athlete or a single sport in isolation, to settings where the relevant determinants are outside policy control (population, wealth, culture), or where the comparative data needed to populate the nine pillars cannot realistically be gathered.
Strengths & limitations
- Provides a comprehensive, common structure -- nine pillars and ~100 factors -- for describing and comparing whole elite sport systems.
- Shifts attention from raw spending to the efficiency with which inputs are converted into sporting outputs.
- Enables international benchmarking and policy learning, letting nations see which levers high-performing systems pull.
- Grounds elite sport policy debate in specified, measurable indicators rather than impressionistic comparison.
- Much international success is driven by factors outside policy control -- population, wealth, sporting culture -- that the framework brackets.
- Scoring relies on combining hard data with subjective stakeholder assessments, introducing measurement and comparability concerns.
- Assembling consistent data across nations and pillars is costly and uneven, limiting the number and comparability of cases.
- The framework describes associations between policy profiles and success but cannot establish that pillar improvements cause more medals.
Common pitfalls
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Applications
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Frequently asked
Does a high SPLISS pillar score guarantee more medals?
No. SPLISS identifies policy factors associated with international success and lets nations benchmark how well their systems are organized, but it explicitly recognizes that much of the variation in medals is driven by factors outside policy control -- population, economic wealth, and sporting culture -- and that the link between policy and outcomes is complex and probabilistic. A strong pillar profile improves the conditions for success without guaranteeing it. The framework is best read as a structured diagnosis of policy efficiency and a tool for learning, not as a deterministic formula in which raising scores mechanically produces podium finishes.
What are the nine pillars?
Pillar 1 is financial support (the input). Pillars 2 to 9 are throughputs: an integrated approach to policy development and governance; sport and club participation as a foundation; talent identification and development systems; athletic and post-career support; training facilities; coaching provision and coach development; national and international competition opportunities; and scientific research and innovation. Together they are meant to cover the controllable determinants of elite success, giving every nation a common structure in which to describe its system. Each pillar is further broken into critical success factors -- around a hundred in total -- that make it measurable.
How are nations actually scored and compared?
Each critical success factor is assessed using a mix of objective policy and performance data and structured judgments from athletes, coaches, and performance directors, commonly summarized with a traffic-light rating. Factor scores are aggregated to give each pillar a rating per nation, and arraying these across countries produces the benchmark profile showing relative strengths and weaknesses. Because the scoring blends hard data with stakeholder assessment, results should be read as informed comparative profiles rather than exact measurements, and comparability depends on gathering consistent evidence across all participating nations -- a substantial data-collection effort.
Sources
- 1.De Bosscher, V., De Knop, P., van Bottenburg, M., & Shibli, S. (2006). A Conceptual Framework for Analysing Sports Policy Factors Leading to International Sporting Success. European Sport Management Quarterly, 6(2), 185-215.
- 2.De Bosscher, V., De Knop, P., van Bottenburg, M., Shibli, S., & Bingham, J. (2009). Explaining International Sporting Success: An International Comparison of Elite Sport Systems and Policies in Six Countries. Sport Management Review, 12(3), 113-136.
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Cite this page
ScholarGate. (2026, June 23). SPLISS Framework. ScholarGate. https://scholargate.app/sport-leisure-studies/spliss-framework