From a working group to a learning community: formal and informal ways for building up a cooperative approach

This paper aims to present a reflection on the critical passage from a formal partnership to a learning community within European Projects. To this end, the authors will present an experience of cooperative working between academics and practitioners within a LLP- Grundtvig Multilateral Project, related to the evaluation of adult education staff. The project presented here is based on the hypothesis that, in order to deal with the task of evaluation at a European level, it is necessary to build up a European culture of evaluation. To this end, it was necessary to promote, within the project partnership, a concrete space of co-working between professionals and researchers within the field of adult education. A specific role was played by a Mobility Workshop: conceived as the core of the collaborative approach proposed, the Workshop was a concrete opportunity for co-working between professionals and researchers from different countries. This paper will present the methodology developed through the Mobility Workshop for supporting the passage from a formal partnership to a learning community.