As part of the ECORYS group, RRD is active in the final evaluation of the Leonardo da Vinci programme and Socrates Programme Second Phase. The aim of the second phase of Socrates was to promote a Europe of knowledge and encourage lifelong education through learning foreign languages, encouraging mobility, promoting cooperation at European level, opening up to methods of access to education and increasing the use of new technologies in the field of education in participating countries. The aim of Leonardo da Vinci was to develop a European area of cooperation specifically in the field of vocational training by encouraging mobility and promoting cooperation.
The evaluation research concerns among other things:
- the implementation of the programmes, in terms of the activities funded, priorities and objectives covered and access to the programmes;
- management issues; and
- the impact of the programmes.
Preliminary findings indicate that the programmes have had a profound impact in people’s lives where individuals have been enabled to be mobile across Europe. Also a significant impact has been effected at institutional level (universities, institutes, schools), less so, however, at the political level of the members states.