The Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) is Australia’s internationally acclaimed national centre of sports excellence for the training and development of elite athletes and teams.
 
Opened in 1981 the AIS originally offered scholarships in eight sports, all based in Canberra. Today, the AIS offer scholarships to 700 athletes each year in 38 separate programs covering 29 sports.
 

In addition to high performance coaching, the AIS gives athletes access to world-leading sports science and sports medicine services, state-of-the-art sports facilities, opportunities for national and international competition, and the chance to combine top-level sports training with travel, work and study.
 

NETBALL AT THE AIS
Netball is a fast, skilful game that requires players to have speed, strategy, agility and endurance. It is a strategic game that relies heavily on teamwork, but individuals also play in highly specialised positions. It is this combination that requires advanced coaching techniques that the AIS is ideally placed to provide.
 

Netball was one of the eight founding sports of the AIS and has benefited from this partnership as evidenced by the sport's depth of talent. The netball landscape has changed significantly since the inception of the AIS High Performance program due to the introduction of the ANZ Championship and the Australian Netball League, and the program has been reviewed with the objective of retaining the world number-one ranking. 

This fine-tuning of the existing program takes into account these influences and aims to ensure all stakeholders work together to develop future Diamonds and increase the depth and sustainability of the sport by using all available resources - people, facilities and services - at the AIS and in the member organisation and state institute and academy of sport network. 

A key feature of the new program is its flexibility to adapt the emphasis and content of the program around milestone events and the year of the high performance cycle. 

TESTIMONIAL: NATALIE VON BERTOUCH (AUSTRALIAN NETBALL DIAMOND VICE CAPTAIN)
“My time at the AIS is something I look back on with fond memories. Not only was it the time of my life, training and playing with such good friends, but it was also crucial in my netball development. At the Institute you are treated as an elite athlete, you learn what is expected and required to compete at the highest level. To have an AIS scholorship and use the state-of the-art facilities and have access to an amazing sports science department taught me the balance of training and recovery to perform at my best. To train side by side with the country's best young netballers and be coached by the most qualified and experienced coaches really sends your netball to another level”