We had four objectives. Objective 1: A crucial and our primary objective was to increase our numbers of participating adult learners as well as including adult learners with more diverse range of backgrounds. Objective 2: It was important for us to establish a pan-European public with pan-European content available for debate (this would contribute to widening our project and strengthening our networks). Objective 3: It was important for us to assist each other’s organisational development. We saw a huge potential in each other for bettering our adult education as well as enhancing and building capacity for cooperation and network-building. Objective 4: It was of importance for us to develop products, tools, methodology, results etc. that would be beneficial to external adult education organisations that seek to obtain similar results as us.
Before the project, all partner organisations experienced similar challenges with regards to activating and engaging adults and we identified a need for a transnational European public in which EU topics and national perspectives could be discussed with. The project aimed to establish a transnational adult education sphere where all adults of diverse backgrounds have the possibility to participate. Our ambition to improve adult education on the EU included both physical and digital engagement of a broader range of participants in terms of social backgrounds, ethnicity, gender, age. During the Covid-19 pandemic, we discovered that virtual formats could be more inclusive and diverse and had a huge potential for education on the EU. Therefore, we aimed to incorporate and implement our organisations’ experiences to develop new designs suited for online informal adult education. We also aimed to inspire each other to create better face-to-face debates, and the online events could help build capacity for future physical meetings as more people would become familiar with the formats online. All in all, we wanted to re-think and improve our capacity for physical events and courses which would be of mutual benefit of all organisations.