The Olympic Studies Centre at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (CEO-UAB) has signed a collaboration agreement with the Russian International Olympic University (RIOU) to collaborate in promoting the study, diffusion and documentation on subjects related with the international Olympic Movement and, in particular, the cultural, social and economic impacts of the modern Olympic Games in host cities.

The agreement was signed on 9th June by the Rector of the UAB, Ana Ripoll, and the Chief Executive Officer of RIOU, Lev Belousov, in an event that had also the participation of Emilio Fernández Peña and Miquel Gómez Benosa, Director and General Coordinator of CEO-UAB.

Fernández Peña glossed the activity of CEO-UAB and highlighted that the Centre, which characterises by an interdisciplinary profile, can contribute in many ways to the start-up of the RIOU's project, the first university in the world dedicated to the Olympic Movement. Belousov explained that the objective of the new institution is to promote research and train experts in the area. The Rector expressed her satisfaction for this new collaboration and highlighted the special importance of the analysis of the legacy that the Olympic Games leave in the territory.

This collaboration between CEO-UAB and RIOUS aims to contribute to the success of the organization of the upcoming winter Olympic Games, which will take place in the Russian city of Sochi in 2014.

Sochi 2014 will be the second Games organised in the Russian territory, after the Moscow 1980 summer Games, then in the Soviet Union. RIOU is a university of new creation that has been promoted in parallel to the organization of the 2014 Olympic Games. RIOU is working together with centres of reference from all over the world in Olympic studies, framework of the new collaboration with CEO-UAB.

According to the signed agreement, CEO-UAB and RIOU will exchange information and documentation for research, will collaborate in the edition of new publications and in the organization of symposiums, will carry out educational activities and will exchange teaching staff and students.

This collaboration, in addition to supporting the organization of the Sochi Olympics, will reinforce in the future the possible organisation of the Olympic Winter Games of 2022 in Barcelona.