Recently the interest in international school development has greatly increased. At the tertiary level there is a lot of international cooperation: student and staff exchanges, participation in many international exchange and research programmes. Most universities offer opportunities to students to study for a period of time at a foreign partner University. Education professionals involved in daily school business – headmasters and teachers – have the opportunity to participate in the EU exchange and education development programmes as well. Many of the programmes have been highly successful and they have opened doors for international cooperation in Europe and beyond. There is, however, the danger that cooperation in the programmes does not always reach the depth needed to create a permanent basis for school development and to get a sound understanding of the everyday work routines of colleagues in other countries. Nor do the programmes give the opportunity to the participants to attain a university certificate enabling them to continue on to further studies. Based on our findings the lecturers of the Zurich University of Teacher Education and the Finnish National Centre for Professional Development in Education (OPEKO) created a course offering a Certificate of Advanced Studies (CAS). This 15-month programme is more than a short snap shot and offers cooperation on the level of daily school business: Finnish and Swiss school leaders and teachers work together discussing current themes of school development. The participants receive theoretical inputs, have the chance to see day-to-day school life of the partner country and have the opportunity to get advice and support for planning and introducing a new project in their own schools. This project will be a result of the new insights of the studies and is accepted as a Certificate of Advanced Studies, recognised in both countries The first course now having been completed, this paper will discuss the concept behind the programme, present our experiences and show suggested improvements for the second course which will start in 2009. The evaluations which come out of this will be presented and critically assessed.

The first part of the paper will present the concept behind the course. The main body of the paper will follow and will cover the evaluation of the first course. This will be systematically gathered from those involved in the organisation of the course and from the participant feedback in both countries. Finally the consequences resulting from the evaluation will be considered.

This new bi-national programme of further education is closely linked to the main conference theme: theory and evidence in European Educational Research. The paper shows how we link theory and evidence in the bi-national cooperation programme.