Last IMPACT Europe project meeting of 2014 took place in Milan
On 3 December 2014, the Università degli Studi di Milano – Bicocca hosted the last IMPACT Europe project meeting of 2014 in Milan, Italy.
The project meeting provided consortium partners with a final opportunity to collectively review the TNO led project deliverable on the state of the art in evaluating the effectiveness of counter violent radicalisation interventions before its release to the European Commission and publication on impacteurope.eu later during the month.
Consortium partners also used the meeting to drive forward the work conducted within the framework of Work Package 3, which is concerned with the development of the IMPACT Europe evaluation toolkit. Specifically, the consortium discussed the schedule for the creation of the IMPACT Europe evaluation toolkit software, which will support public and voluntary sector professionals in the design and implementation of counter violent radicalisation programme evaluations. As the consortium partner leading on the development of the IMPACT Europe evaluation toolkit, RAND Europe reported on the kick off the work on the design of the evaluation toolkit software architecture.
With a view to ensuring the robustness of the design and the effectiveness of the piloting of the evaluation toolkit, consortium partners discussed the addition of two additional end user organisations to the consortium. Thus, throughout the process of designing the IMPACT Europe evaluation toolkit, the two new consortium partners are envisaged to provide the information and input necessary to effectively use the toolkit, to inform the design of a training course and manual in support of the evaluation toolkit, and to contribute to the validation of the toolkit by piloting it and by giving feedback on its user friendliness, utility, and contribution to capacity building.
Consortium members also discussed the endeavour to create greater synergies between IMPACT Europe and the European Union funded Radicalisation Awareness Network (RAN). Specifically, consortium partners welcomed plans to add several individuals actively involved with RAN to the IMPACT Europe advisory board.
The project meeting also provided an opportunity to make final preparations for the 2015 IMPACT Europe consortium meeting, which is scheduled to take place on 8-9 January 2015 in Paris, France. The consortium meeting will bring together IMPACT Europe consortium partners and advisory board members to engage in a comprehensive stock taking of progress made with regard to meeting IMPACT Europe’s objectives since the project’s launch in January 2014 and to discuss strategies for ensuring the continued visibility and future sustainability of IMPACT Europe outputs.