David Fleischman

The pursuit of international sporting success has become a billion-dollar global enterprise, with nations striving to optimise their high-performance sport systems for sustained competitive advantage (De Bosscher et al., 2008). Central to this endeavour is the development of HPPs that consistently identify and develop athletes to achieve podium success at peak events such as the Olympic, Paralympic Games and World Championships.

While there is extensive research investigating the identification and development of elite athletes, there remains limited integration of this research to inform how HPPs can produce optimal system-level outcomes (Rees et al., 2016). Moreover, existing HPPs exhibit high attrition (Huxley et al., 2017), high incidences of injury and mental ill-health (Pilkington et al., 2024), and access barriers related to financial and social/cultural capital (Padya, 2021). Research exploring factors that influence both positive and negative HPP outcomes is therefore critical.

Systems thinking is presented as a theoretical approach to improve understanding of HPPs in Athletics. Systems thinking describes and understands complex problems by viewing them as emergent properties of interconnected systems rather than isolated parts (Salmon et al., 2023). In this case, it focuses on the whole athletics ‘system’ as the unit of analysis—its purpose, elements, and interconnections—and how these contribute to HPP outcomes. Systems thinking is emerging as an effective approach to address persistent, complex challenges in sport (McLean et al., 2025). As such, it provides a novel theoretical approach to understanding the interconnected systems underpinning HPPs.

Understanding the knowledge base to identify what is known about the factors influencing the identification, development, and success of athletes in Athletics HPPs is a key first step. Accordingly, this scoping review aimed to determine these factors.

The aim of the presentation is to unpack the positioning of an elite student-athlete support program via a USC's Student Engagement Framework. As such, the presentation focuses on the importance of developing and cultivating internal partnerships to support a whole-of-university, education-centric, high performance student-athlete program. Taking an internal approach has helped establish a cultural shift towards elite sport within the University, ensuring that elite student-athlete needs are well understood and high quality learning and teaching and support are at the fore. In moving forward the program will look to multi-disciplinary perspectives and external partnerships to further enhance the high performance student athlete experience.