Lessons from a City Working Group Model of Learning Exchange

This paper sets out lessons from an eighteen month learning exchange project involving working groups of city officials coordinated by university based researchers. It is intended as a contribution to knowledge on the efficacy of differing models of learning exchange, to inform future exercises of this kind. Action for Inclusion in Europe was a learning exchange project run by the Global Exchange on Migration and Diversity. The aim of this paper is to assess the value of the particular working-group model used in the project as a means of facilitating reforms in policies or practices at city level. It is based on focused discussions with working group members and research coordinators at the second and final meetings of the projects’ three city working groups; and on their on-line, anonymous responses to a series of questions relating to different aspects of the model. The author was overall responsible for the project and attended all of the meetings of each working group.