The SPA project partnership, led by world professional associations and their European and national member organisations, will collaborate with employers and education and training providers in the sports therapy industry to develop new European standards able to facilitate career progression and to encourage individual mobility, in the form of competency benchmarks and standards for accreditation. A project website will further be created to act as an information and communication platform and educational portal. The key outcomes of the project will be; a series of core competencies against which a national member organisation can measure its provision; an audit tool kit for measuring individual standards of competence acquired in formal or informal settings; new procedures for individual accreditation by the International Federation of Sports Physiotherapy (IFSP) and a website and e-learning portal providing information on the accreditation committee and procedures, sports therapy practice guidelines and references, news, education and training opportunities and giving access to a training workshop. New accreditation provision will facilitate flexible learning pathways and the use of portfolio information in advance of approaches to IFSP. National bodies in the participating countries are expected to adopt the new accreditation rules via their respective Annual General Meetings. The project will be run by a small core group, supported by a larger expert group, to ensure that all developments reflect the views of representatives of member organisations and education and industry partners. Dissemination is built into the project partnership as this represents the profession itself and will use existing dissemination channels to support this. Dissemination will be further promoted via the established web platform.