The central idea of the project was to adapt the existing Rickter Scale® Process to the needs of different disadvantaged target beneficiary groups in the 4 participating countries, helping them progress towards employment. The Partners collaborated to develop language and culture-specific versions of the Rickter Scale® Process.

The partners of this Transfer of Innovation project all work within their own countries to provide the opportunities for marginalised groups to engage with education, training and employment to gain recognition for existing and newly acquired skills and thereby gain access to the labour market.

Through participation in an ongoing Leonardo Partnership Project: ‘Assessing and Validating non-formally and informally acquired skills in vocational training’, the partners have identified a motivational assessment, action planning and impact measurement package developed in the UK as worthy of further development for use across the more culturally diverse European context.

Practitioners from each country were trained in Newcastle in 2011 and 2012 in the use of the Rickter Scale®. Following a phase of implementation with the target groups, the findings were evaluated by the University of Northumbria in the UK, an Evaluation Report was published, and the process upgraded accordingly. A second period of implementation with the target groups then monitored the effectiveness of the adaptations. Towards the end of this phase, all practitioners used the Rickter Scale® Process to ascertain their personal evaluation of the project itself.

To maximise the exploitation of the project’s outcomes beyond the TOI, the partners agreed to a long-term “associative partnership” and became licensed to offer trainings in the use of the Rickter Scale® Process to other vocational training organisations within their countries.