By analysing tools and methodologies in different European countries and proposing solutions from the civil society perspective, this successful project contributed to reducing the fragmentation of validation systems in Europe. It showed possible ways forward to make validation systems in Europe more inclusive and accessible, explored the best practices and policy strategies for validation for the disadvantaged, contributed to an exchange of tools, procedures and experiences among validation stakeholders in the EU and beyond.To be in line with the European Council Recommendation of 2012, Member States should have validation systems in place by 2018. The AVA consortium initiated this project to support Member States in their work towards this objective, acknowledging that they were facing significant challenges (and in some cases even resistance) while putting in place such systems and that a major role could be played by adult education providers and stakeholders. In the first project phase, the consortium drafted and promoted a survey addressing adult education providers, validation arrangement providers and analysed its results. Both the survey and the analysis had very positive feedback from validation professionals and had been instrumental in drafting important key questions and collect inspiring best practices. These were also the starting point in preparing the AVA Action Plan, which was drafting in the second phase of the project and represent probably the milestone of the AVA consortium work. The plan provides key messages, concrete examples and suggestions targeted at both policy makers and adult education organizations. It is available in three languages and freely downloadable from the project website: http://www.eaea.org/en/projects/eaea-coordinated-projects/ava.html The partners also produced five articles on validation practices and their impact as well as developed an event methodology that allowed the smooth and fruitful running of expert seminar but could be also used by other stakeholders in the organisation of similar events. Three events were organised in the framework of the project. A jour fixe was held in Vienna on 13 October 2015. It had the purpose to present the initial survey results to a wider public and discuss the main challenges arisen in the analysis. An expert seminar took place in Oslo on the 1-2 February 2016 in order to debate the main themes and outcomes of the survey and collect recommendations for drafting the action plan. A policy debate at the Economic and Social Committee attended by more than 60 participants (Brussels, 29 June 2016,) was instrumental in presenting the AVA intellectual outputs to key validation stakeholders and discuss the Action Plan.The consortium was composed of 6 organisations: the European Association for the Education of Adults (BE), the Nordic Network for Adult Learning (NO), the Association of Austrian Adult Education Centres (AT), the Innovation and Social Development institute - Kerigma (PT), the Dutch Platform for International Adult Learning (NL) and the Euro Adult Education Association (RO). Partners had wide-ranging and long-standing experience on validation as well as broad and established networks of contacts. This contributed to making this project a success both in terms of quality of results and of quantity of people reached.The AVA main target groups are adult education providers as well as national and European policy-makers dealing with validation systems. Participants in the project, as well as the wider adult education community, learned from each other, gained an insight into different validation tools, developed different approaches to support disadvantaged learners, proposed possible solutions to face the fragmentation of systems, built partnerships between providers and sectors and deepened their understanding of existing European policies for validation. The consortium also provided more practice-based evidence for better policy-making on the topic. By raising awareness of validation and making it more inclusive, the project had also a positive impact on individual learners and the society as a whole. According to the AVA consortium, validation is one of the key tools and components for lifelong learning and thus should be considered as a right. All citizens should be able to access validation arrangements and get their competences acquired outside the formal system recognized. This will allow them to move one step up in their personal lives and careers, increase people’s motivation for lifelong learning and bridge the labour market gaps between the job supply and demand.We believe that the materials and outputs will remain valid and will be used at least until 2018, the deadline for the implementation of national validation systems. The consortium is deeply committed to exploiting them on European and national levels both in their advocacy and daily work on validation.