Crucially, to incorporate a realistic, vital and manageable process of impact assessment for this partnership, we started from the following definition: "A change in a person's or organization's outlook or capability". This working definition was a guiding one, that enabled the process of impact assessment to be undertaken.
The impact upon our participating students: the opportunity to interact with students from different corners of Europe, to make new friends, to travel to new countries and become immersed in new cultures. Students gained from developing inter-personal social skills, which could generate a new desire to take advantage of further European travel and integration opportunities in future years. By involving our students in all the stages of the project (from planning activities to evaluation), they became more responsible, self-confident and motivated; thus, many of them improved their school performance. Nevertheless, we were able to notice improvement in our students' communication skills in a foreign language, English especially (general but also specific vocabulary for technical sectors like cycling, tourism, marketing and advertising).
These types of impact are in addition to the activity-based impacts of:
- understanding the benefits of cycling in their life
- understanding the significance and importance of enterprise (through cycling)
- how to undertake enquiry-led research as part of an international group
- how to present enquiry results using modern media techniques
- how to prepare multilingual materials
- how to design, prepare content for a website on cycling
- how to take initiative and set up a business
- how to collaborate across states to form a multinational business enterprise
Taking into consideration the impact upon the participating staff, we need to refer to the development of the pedagogy of enquiry and activity-based techniques, and also the improvement of reporting techniques by using new communication technologies. This collaborative impact was both at a sustainable local level (where new approaches could be applied to other areas of the curriculum) and at an observational level as staff saw the way that European colleagues use such techniques.
The impact upon the participating institutions refers to short and long term gains from the planning and development of cross-curricular local activities, which were and would be used within and beyond the timescale of the partnership. Each partner gained from enhanced local collaboration between subject departments and staff when planning the local activities. A further impact for each partner can be greatly enhanced links with many partner institutions beyond the timescale of this partnership.