The Open Data Institute (ODI) has been awarded £700,000 of National Lottery funding by Sport England to continue delivering OpenActive. The award will fund an extension of the project’s current phase, which will help to align OpenActive with the ambitions of the 10-Year Health Plan for England.
First launched in 2016, OpenActive aims to help people find local exercise opportunities more easily by making the data about these opportunities simple to access, use and share as open data.
Part of the funding will enable OpenActive to work more closely with healthcare systems, piloting ways to make it easier for GPs and healthcare professionals to connect patients with suitable local activities.
Stewarded by the ODI, OpenActive is vital to Sport England’s long-term strategy Uniting the Movement, as the challenge of finding information about local opportunities to be active is a persistent barrier to those people and communities already facing inequalities in activity levels.
It aligns with the government's 10-Year Health Plan, supporting three intended shifts - from treatment to prevention, analogue to digital and hospital to community.
This funding extension recognises that good health outcomes require good data infrastructure. When we make it as easy to locate an exercise class as it is to find a film at the cinema, we can transform physical activity from abstract advice into practical healthcare. Within the context of the 10-Year Health Plan, we now have a perfect opportunity to embed physical activity recommendations directly into patient care. OpenActive provides the data foundation that makes this vision achievable.
CEO of the ODI
The funding extension announced today runs to June 2027 and takes Sport England’s investment in this phase of the project to £2.4 million, with a total investment since 2016 of £5.6m.
The ODI will use the latest investment to focus on three key areas:
- improving the data standards specifically for healthcare and social prescribing integration
- expanding use cases across sports clubs, healthcare and active travel
- establishing a sustainable governance model that could support other public service data standards.
OpenActive already supports over 4,000 activity providers across the UK, from major leisure centres to community sports clubs, making more than three million monthly opportunities to get active visible online every month.
Its data standards enable classes and sessions to be described in a consistent format and published online, making it easier to find activities based on factors such as location, timing, accessibility, or condition-specific requirements.
This investment ensures ongoing support to these activity providers and potentially more, as the data standard evolves to incorporate club locations, walking and cycling routes and improved accessibility information.
Supporting government health priorities
The continued funding comes as the government prioritises preventative healthcare and a significant upgrade to the NHS App.
Physical inactivity costs the UK economy £20 billion annually. It contributes to long-term health conditions affecting 2.8 million working-age adults, yet many healthcare professionals lack reliable information about local activity options for their patients.
The ODI recently published a white paper, Data Infrastructure for a Healthier Nation, which demonstrated how standardised activity data could support preventative healthcare while reducing NHS pressure.
Sport England chair, Chris Boardman, recognises that improving the sport and physical activity sector’s ability to publish high-quality data has the potential to transform the nation’s health.
Physical activity is one of the most powerful tools we have for improving health, but only if people, and healthcare practitioners, can find and recommend suitable opportunities. OpenActive provides the digital infrastructure that makes this possible at scale.
Sport England chair
