The project “Quality standards in intercultural projects focusing on active participation - connecting theory and practice”, hereafter referred to as “QStand”, was born following a series of discussions and exchanges between youth workers regarding the quality of the projects run by their own organisations and those of their partners across Europe. As such, it has a strong reflection foundation and is meant as both an analysis (of their own way of working and developing projects) and a reflection (to the way projects are being carried out in general), yet with a constructive and a positive intention of improving projects and creating better results that young people in Europe can benefit from.QStand was designed with the aim to inspire organisations to review their own internal process of quality assurance in order to propose and implement better intercultural projects.The objectives of the project are:- to identify and define the elements that are crucial to ensuring high quality active participation projects with high-standard intercultural learning processes;- to analyse the steps organisations need to take in assuring quality;- to share experiences of both best and worst practices - successes and failures - in developing and implementing high quality projects;- to define minimum quality standards for intercultural projects focusing on active participation;- to create tool(s) for minimum quality standards that support organisations in developing projects that respond to a minimum quality;- to identify key areas of quality assurance that need further development (mainly through training or other educational processes).We expect a total of 27 participants representing the partner organisations to take actively part in the seminar. In order to ensure the high quality of the seminar and given the objectives that have been set, we expect partners to nominate as participants experienced youth workers that:- are fluent in English, the official language of the seminar;- are involved in the management aspects of projects or organisations (organisation/project managers) or are in charge of the educational aspects of projects (trainers, facilitators).They should have a relevant experience in their respective fields of activity and should have a genuine concern for the quality of the projects they contribute to. The experience in the two fields (management or education/pedagogic) will ensure that most of the elements that can affect the quality of a project are covered during the discussions.The “QStand” project is comprised of two main activities:1- QStand Seminar - Saint-Denis-d'Anjou, Mayenne, France 2- QStand Editorial meeting - Saint-Denis-d'Anjou, Mayenne, France The milestones of the QStand seminar are as follows: - Defining quality: The first step is to brainstorm about the definition(s) of quality around which then identifying and defining elements to ensure high quality standards in conceiving and implementing intercultural projects;- Quality – Management Dimension: The second step is to share on how to ensure quality over the different steps of the project cycle management (planning, implementation and evaluation phases);- Quality – Educational Dimension: The third step focuses on how to choose appropriate contents and non-formal education methodologies of intercultural projects in order to fulfil their overall aims and to deliver high quality learning outcomes;- Quality – Framework: The last step is to try to define a common framework by creating quality standard tools that could thereafter be used by the organisations in order to improve intercultural projects’ quality.The QStand editorial meeting is meant to serve the finalisation of the publication. The editorial team will take the ideas and content developed during the seminar and will further develop it through online co-operation with those participants of the seminar that will express their interest to continue to contribute to the project. The fact that the editorial meeting will take place about 3 months after the seminar will allow for ideas, thoughts to settle, for time to work in-depth on them. The meeting itself will also act as a re-focusing moment and will ensure the finalisation of the publication. In this sense, the editorial meeting touches upon the last three objectives of the project, allowing the creation of the quality standards model, the tools to be proposed and the identification of the areas that need further development.The publication created at the end of the project is the main instrument for multiplying and integrating the results of the project at the local, regional, national, european and international level. It may be regarded as a reference tool that facilitates the sharing of knowledge, instruments and best practices.