It is UK Sport’s role to ensure that the resources available to support our Olympic and Paralympic athletes are targeted to maximise their chance of medal success and enable us to drive positive social change.
While winning and being competitive at the highest level remains the priority, there is a recognition that sporting success creates a powerful platform to inspire and effect lasting positive change for individuals and society.
UK Sport’s principles reflect the evolution of our investment approach. The Principles guide our strategic decisions: in both the investments we make and the targeted actions and interventions we take.
We make four year awards, but in the context of a twelve year horizon. This reflects our ambition to develop a more sustainable, healthy and efficient sporting ecosystem, and acknowledges that this will take time. Awards are made against three specific investment streams - Podium, Academy and Progression with these investments underpinned by a core award. Each investment stream is monitored separately to track progress towards long-term goals. A National Squads Support Fund has also been established to contribute to the development of credible national squads.
To ensure our decision making is open and transparent, we review our Principles every four years – and Annual Reviews are conducted each year to assess sports progress.
This approach, along with record levels of investment from the National Lottery, Exchequer and Team 2012 helped Great Britain achieve 67 Olympic medals and 147 Paralympic medals at Rio 2016, five Olympic and seven Paralympic medals at PyeongChang 2018 and 65 Olympic medals and 124 Paralympic medals at Tokyo 2020.