Defining impact before application: why most teams do it the wrong way around

In most proposals we review before submission, the “impact” section is the last to be written. It is drafted late, in isolation from the rest of the document, and filled with ambitious sentences that are not connected to the activities. The evaluator notices immediately. And deducts points.

The recent Erasmus+ Impact Handbook published by Nuffic and MDF Training & Consultancy puts it bluntly: thinking about impact is not something that happens after a project ends. It begins the moment you decide to apply. If you wait until the last week before the deadline to build it, you are already too late.

Output, outcome, impact: three words that are not synonyms

Before discussing approaches, the vocabulary needs cleaning. A solid proposal distinguishes three levels of result and connects them in a logical chain.

• Output is what the project directly delivers: a guide, a course, a platform, a group of trained teachers. It is what the project produces in a controllable way.
• Outcome is the behavioural change in those who use those outputs. It is not that the guide exists; it is that teachers start applying inclusive methodologies in class. An outcome is defined by action verbs from the actors involved, not by the delivery of a product.
• Impact is the broader, longer-term change the project contributes to: policy adopted, more cohesive communities, more inclusive education systems. The project alone does not produce impact. It contributes to it.

The difference between the three is what separates an evaluable proposal from a declarative one. Erasmus+ and Horizon Europe templates are designed to force that distinction. Whoever blurs it, loses points.

Two approaches to build impact before application

The handbook proposes two paths. Both arrive at the same place -a logical chain of activities, outputs, outcomes and impact- but they start from opposite ends.

Approach 1: from impact backwards

You start with the big question: what situation do we want to see in five years that does not exist today? From that vision, you reason backwards down to the activities.

The five steps:

1. Describe the vision (desired impact). Be specific about whose future you are talking about. Is it students, communities, the institution? A vision without a subject is an empty vision. Valid examples: “The quality of education at partner institutions has improved in the eyes of students and staff”; “Mobility participants gain greater access to international employment opportunities”.
2. Define who and what needs to change (outcomes). Stakeholder mapping enters here. Listing beneficiaries is not enough. You have to identify which stakeholder must do something differently for the vision to come true. Each outcome is written with the formula: “<actor> does <this differently>, so that <link to vision>”. For example: “The school board approves new teaching methods, so that teachers can implement them in the classroom”.
3. Determine the outputs. Which products, services or capacities does the project need to deliver to make those behavioural changes possible? A guide, a pilot, a training, a platform.
4. Describe the activities. Only here do you define what you will do. And the useful question is: what other activities could produce the same output? That question prevents the project from becoming a list of favourite activities without justification.
5. Check the logic. Do the activities lead to the output? Do the outputs lead to the outcome? Do the outcomes contribute to the impact? If the answer is no at any link, adjust before drafting the form.

This approach is the most demanding, but also the one that gives the proposal the most strength. It is the logic a European evaluator is trained to recognise.

Approach 2: from activities to impact

The second approach starts where most teams already are: with clear ideas of which activities they want to run.

The three steps:

1. Who is your target group and what activities will you do? List the activities together with the direct beneficiary of each one. Train teachers, give technical support to a working group, run pilot classes.
2. What is going to change? For each activity, define which output it produces and which outcome it aims to generate in the beneficiary.
3. What wider change does this contribute to? Only at the end do you identify impact at the level of organisation, community, society or education system.

This approach is faster and useful for smaller projects or when the team already has a clear “what”. The risk: ending up with activities that do not chain well into a credible impact. That is why the handbook insists on iterating and adjusting activities if the resulting impact is weak.

Which approach to use

At 2811 we use both depending on the case. For Horizon Europe, EIC or large strategic calls, where the impact section weighs between 30% and 50% of the evaluation, we always go with Approach 1. The upfront time investment more than pays off in narrative quality.

For Erasmus+ KA1 mobility, more operational KA2 actions, or regional calls, Approach 2 works well if done with discipline and if the team is willing to iterate.

What has changed in the new cycle

The next European funding cycle 2028-2034, with its expanded Horizon Europe and a unified Erasmus+ at 36.2 billion euros, is shifting the centre of gravity toward results-based funding, lump sums and outcome-oriented reporting. This changes how a proposal is evaluated: the evaluator trusts budget detail less and design logic more.

In practice, that means the impact-outcome-output-activity chain has to be solid from the first draft of the document. Proposals that arrive with impact pasted at the end no longer pass the first filter.

How we work it at 2811

When we support an organisation through an application, the first thing is not to write. The first thing is a two-hour vision session with key stakeholders, where we force concrete answers to three questions:

• What specific situation do we want to see in five years that does not exist today?
• Who, exactly, has to change behaviour for that situation to happen?
• What evidence would show the change occurred?

Only after closing those three answers do we start drafting. The difference between a proposal designed in that sequence and one written in reverse is visible from the first page. And in the final score.

---

Sources: MDF Training & Consultancy / Nuffic, Erasmus+ Impact Handbook: How to work towards impact in the programme Erasmus+ · Erasmus+ Impact Tool, intervention logic framework · European Commission, Erasmus+ Programme Guide 2025.