BACKGROUND & CHALLENGE Despite EU and national policy efforts & initiatives, disadvantaged groups continue performing worse, participating less & benefiting less from adult education opportunities than other learners. The lack of systematic evaluation & impact monitoring aiming at disadvantaged adult learners results in insufficient data, preventing adult learning providers from taking informed decisions and designing practices to improve effectiveness on disadvantaged groups. Adult learning providers need methodologies, tools and guidance to engage in a self-review process and adopt a systematic monitoring system to generate sufficient evidence to understand and evaluate their effectiveness on disadvantaged learners. OBJECTIVES 1. Identify the most important factors that affect effectiveness of adult learning providers on EU disadvantaged adult learners. 2. Develop & provide adult learning providers with a validated framework and a self-assessment methodology on effectiveness towards disadvantaged, to engage them in a self-review process and improve the existing monitoring techniques. 3. Produce open resources and recommendations for practices and policies to enable adult learning providers to improve effectiveness of adult education provision for disadvantaged. THE IMPADA PARTNERSHIP The partnership comprises 5 organisations from 5 EU countries from the worlds of adult learning provision, educational research & policy development. Derbyshire Adult Community Education Service (DACES) is a large UK provider experienced in applying evaluation methods on education effectiveness. The Polish Educational Research Institute (IBE) leads the research on the evaluation of education systems. People’s University of Rome (Upter) delivers courses adjusted to the needs of disadvantaged adult learners. The Estonian Non-formal Adult Education Association (ENAEA) represents the Estonian adult learning providers at national and EU level. PROMEA is an expert in the design & implementation of research methodologies for education. ACTIVITIES & METHODOLOGY 1. Desk research and focus groups to identify the factors influencing adult education effectiveness on disadvantaged. 2. Development of a common framework, implementation guide and self-assessment methodology for evaluating the effectiveness of adult learning providers on disadvantaged learners. 3. Exchange of successful practices to produce recommendations for improvements on the effectiveness of adult education provision for disadvantaged. 4. Training of the partnership’s adult learning providers on the use of the IMPADA framework and tools and on the design of improvement measures. 5. Self-assessment of providers to pilot test the IMPADA framework and tools and to produce improvement plans. 6. Creation of a network of IMPADA adopters to facilitate the sustainability of results. 7. Promotion of IMPADA outputs through multiplier events. RESULTS & IMPACT 1. Criteria for measuring adult education effectiveness on disadvantaged groups to provide trainers and managing staff of adult leaning providers with greater understanding on disadvantaged learners’ needs and help them design & deliver more attractive & efficient education programmes (6500 managers and trainers to be reached). 2. A framework and tools for the evaluation of the effectiveness of adult learning providers towards disadvantaged to a) engage adult learning providers in a self-review process to evaluate the effectiveness of their provision on disadvantaged, and b) help National bodies enhance existing (where applicable) evaluation frameworks (500 providers, 60 key individuals in national authorities and educational research institutes to be reached). 3. Recommendations for adult learning providers to help them improve their effectiveness, adapting education provision to the needs of specific disadvantaged groups. 4. A network of IMPADA adopters and repository of assessment results to allow the exchange of practices regarding disadvantaged learners and promote the adoption of IMPADA outputs (60 adopters during project life). 5. A European conference and four national infodays to reach and involve target groups (275 participants). LONG-TERM BENEFITS 1. Uptake and adaptation of IMPADA framework and tools by adult learning providers in EU, adjusting questions to evaluate effectiveness on specific disadvantaged subgroups. 2. Uptake of IMPADA framework from national bodies involved in monitoring, quality assurance and evaluation of adult education systems in Europe, with the aim to improve current monitoring techniques. 3. Participation of a growing number of disadvantaged adult learners in lifelong learning programmes, which will have been improved based on IMPADA outputs, resulting in more active participation of disadvantaged in society.