This report builds on the first round of TSI consultations with national stakeholders (third sector umbrella organisations, federations and significant third sector aggregations on national level, across all fields of activity), conducted in 6 target countries between April and October 2014: Norway, Austria, France, Poland, Croatia and United Kingdom.

The objectives of the national meetings were to give stakeholders information needed to raise awareness of TSI as a cross-EU research effort; to gather their insights on which third sector impact “domains” should be explored and how this should be done; and to facilitate discussion of how the third sector’s impact is shaped by current national situations. In addition, views and priorities of a group of German stakeholders were collected through a structured questionnaire. The debates of the national stakeholder meetings followed a common agenda and reports provided input as to:

1. Knowledge and experience of impacts perceived;
2. Priorities as to necessity of further understanding and availability of data and indicators (the “short list”);
3. Further insights on the issues of impact and indications on connections to policy environment and work in the field.

Stakeholders in each country indicated participation, civic engagement, advocacy and community building and wellbeing as the most important impact domains of third sector activity. These general priorities do not depend on the sector of engagement or type of activities. Research priorities indicated by practitioners point towards defining indicators and methods for measuring third sector contributions to democratic and community life on societal level and towards personal wellbeing on individual level.

You can download the full report below. For questions and suggestions please contact Ksenija Fonovic ksfonovic@spes.lazio.it