Introduction

The Process Development Report is the second one of the joint European reports of the European cooperation project “Work & Learning Partners (WLP)”. The project has been funded in the years 2004-2006 as a pilot project by the European action programme Leonardo da Vinci. The aim of the project has been to raise awareness of workplace learning partnerships and to develop tools that promote related know-how across Europe.

The project has committed itself to prepare two European reports that give an overview of the joint findings and learning experiences. The first one – the European comparative report presents an overview on the analyses of workplace learning partnerships in different countries and on the possibilities for mutual learning between different innovation concepts in Europe. The second one – the Process Development Report – gives a picture of the gradual evolution of the project and provides insights into the joint learning experiences that have been made during different evolutionary phases.

The need for a process development report arises from the complexity of the project design (that included country studies, case studies, development of supporting tools and web resources as well as piloting and dissemination activities. In complex trans-national cooperation projects – and in particular in the field of vocational education and training (VET) – the experience shows that projects that have to review their initial plans and consider alternative ways forward. Therefore, the European added value of such projects may arise from their ability to analyse their initial difficulties, their problem-solving strategies and their ability to adjust their work to the needs of different participating countries.

In the light of the above the project history of the WLP project can be presented as

1. a conceptual evolution process during which project has adjusted the underlying ideas and the original working concept to the picture that has been drawn on the circumstances in different countries and on the specific challenges to which the project has to respond;
2. a collective learning process during which the project has gained new knowledge on external tools, instruments and patterns of work can be used to facilitate the work or to solve problems that have been encountered during the work;
3. as an organisational reorientation process during which the project has reviewed critically its prior work and taken new measures that ensure the achievement of relevant results (both from the perspective of original goal-settings and from the perspective of usability of the results in the participating countries).

Therefore, the process development report of the WLP project draws attention to the following aspects of the project history of the WLP project:

1. The role of tool development in promoting partnership development: In this context the WLP project had to find its way to introduce common tools for field activities in different countries (with respectively different preconditions for partnership development).
2. The role of web resources in promoting partnership development: In this context the WLP project had to find its way to keep up with current innovations but at the same time make decisions on tools and services that could be used during the work of the project.
3. The role of European knowledge development and of active piloting in the field: In this context the WLP project had to combine the support for active piloting to parallel efforts to maintain a conceptual overview on different countries and their national activities.
4. The role of the joint results and of the related support services: In this context the WLP project has had to consider how its European results could best be made usable as products and services that promote partnership development in different countries.