YouCount: Save the dates for Final Conference 4-5 December 2023

Youth Citizen Social Science contributing to social inclusion How can we shape an inclusive society for young people at risk of exclusion in Europe? What role can Citizen Science play in this endeavour? The Horizon 2020 research and innovation project YouCount explored these questions through co-creative research with youth and local stakeholders in nine countries across ten cases. After two years of hands-on Youth Citizen Social Science work, YouCount will share experiences and look ahead to discuss findings and potential impacts on EU policies and beyond. Program: The first day includes a seminar focusing on hands-on Youth Citizen Social Science and a welcome reception. The final conference takes place on the second day where we will discuss implications of key findings with stakeholders and policymakers. On both days, the voices of our young co-researchers will be amplified during presentations, interactive sessions, round table discussions and an exhibition. The event will be free of charge and partly hybrid. Event location: DECEMBER 4, 2023 | 14.00-17.00 & 18.00-20.30 | Nordic House, Rue du Luxembourg 3/5 DECEMBER 5, 2023 | 09.00-17.00 | Hotel NH Brussels EU Berlaymont, Bd Charlemagne 11/19 - tagg "YouCount"

Stories from the YouCount Youth - On new perspectives, being heard more deeply and belonging.

YouCount is working to co-create new knowledge and innovations to increase youth social inclusion. Since 2020, 100s of young people from local communities and 30 students from universities have worked with researchers on 10 research questions in 9 different countries. This webinar is a unique opportunity for you to learn about the YouCount project. 16 of these young people co-created this webinar and some of them will share their stories from the YouCount project. This includes lessons learned and what you should consider for future work with youth like them. Join us to learn about their important work, their results, and their valuable perspectives on engaging youth in citizen social science.

CoAct Final Event Week

After three exciting and intense years, CoAct is coming to an end. Citizen Social Sciences intends to collaborate equally between citizen groups and academic actors. As a consortium, we propose a new understanding of Citizen Social Science as participatory research co-designed and driven by citizen groups sharing a social concern. They become co-researchers in processes commonly dominated by academic researchers. Throughout the last three years, we brought together and further developed methods to give citizen groups an equal ‘seat at the table’ through active participation in research, from the design to the interpretation of the results and their transformation into concrete actions. But we also enabled intensive discussions and knowledge sharing regarding the framing of participation and the predominant understanding of science. All these activities generated experiences and lessons learned, which we wish to share and discuss with everyone interested in our Final Event Week. We are organising three days of knowledge sharing, reflecting, and discussing the future of CSS based on these learnings.

YouCount webinar: Transformative & Innovative Impact

Young people in Europe are facing many challenges with regard to social inclusion (e.g. social participation, employment, social belonging). There is a pressing need to develop more knowledge and innovation to create more inclusive and youth-friendly societies. One way to contribute to this is through Citizen Social Science with young people - Youth Citizen Social Science (Y-CSS). The YouCount project has organised a series of three webinars to discuss central questions of Y-CSS and to create a network of interested people. The third and last webinar "Transformative & Innovative Impact" will take place on the 4th of November. These webinars are for practitioners of Citizen Science, Community-based Research and youth engagement, but people without prior experience are also very welcome. These are exciting conversations, and YouCount is working hard to make them happen in inclusive and equitable ways.

Methodologies & Evaluation: Setting up Youth Citizen Social Science

Young people in Europe are facing many challenges with regard to social inclusion (e.g. social participation, employment, social belonging). There is a pressing need to develop more knowledge and innovation to create more inclusive and youth-friendly societies. One way to contribute to this is through Citizen Social Science with young people - Youth Citizen Social Science (Y-CSS). This webinar offers an opportunity for exchange on doing Y-CSS in practice and it seeks to mobilise your expertise and feedback for the YouCount project. Members of the project are developing a framework for setting up case studies in several countries. The challenge is to translate the many ideas surrounding youth citizen social science into practical research and innovations. They will present their concepts and seek your feedback and discussion on how local case studies and integrating frameworks can be designed. Claire Murray (ECSA) will get us started with essential points for practically preparing for youth participation. To illustrate an ambitious ways of how this can be done in a European project, Julie Ridley (UCLan) will give us an overview on the multiple case study approach that is used in YouCount. Then there will be a series of in-depth discussions on key aspects of setting up Y-CSS projects in practice.

How to open up research & innovation to young people?

Young people in Europe are facing many challenges with regard to social inclusion. Social participation, employment, social belonging are important examples. There is a pressing need to develop more knowledge and innovation to create more inclusive and youth-friendly societies. One way to contribute to this is Citizen Social Science with young people - Youth Citizen Social Science (Y-CSS). We organise a series of three webinars to discuss central questions of Y-CSS and to create a network of interested people. The webinars are for practitioners of Citizen Science, Community-based Research and youth engagement. We would be happy to learn from your experience and the questions you bring. We would be particularly grateful for young researchers and youth organisations to take part. We want to learn from their work and perspectives. People without prior experience are of course also very welcome. These are exciting conversations and we are working hard to make them happen in inclusive and equitable ways. Participation in the webinars is open to everybody and free of charge.

Citizen Social Science School: Social Dimensions in Citizen Science

This virtual experience will take place online from 13-23 September. The main goal of this event is to offer academic researchers a common space and a shared time to reflect, discuss, learn, and receive practical guidelines to explore social dimensions behind a wide set of Citizen Science practices related to social issues and when involving groups and persons in a vulnerable situation acting as co-researchers.

ECSA & EU-Citizen.Science webinar: Introducing new citizen science projects launching in 2021

Our webinar on the 26th May 2021 (14.00-15.30 CEST) will highlight new citizen science projects starting in 2021, with short talks from three early career researchers: – Famke Mölenberg (she/her/hers) (Erasmus MC, Netherlands) is an epidemiologist working on SEEDS, which aims to engage teenagers from Spain, the Netherlands, Greece and the United Kingdom in their health education and science literacy by directly empowering through citizen science. She tweets as @FamkeMolenberg. – Dr Cristina Zaga (she/her/hers) (University of Twente, Netherlands) is assistant professor in human-centred design working on Incentive, which links project partners and citizen science to co-create sustainable transdisciplinary hubs for stimulating and supporting excellent citizen science and responsible research and innovation (RRI). She tweets as @Zaga_daga. – Isabelle Freiling (she/her/hers) (University of Vienna, Austria) is a communication scientist working in the YouCount project, which aims to identify positive drivers for social inclusion of youth at risk of exclusion, and cocreate innovations and policymaking using cocreative youth citizen social science. She tweets as @isa_freiling. The webinar will finish with a Q&A and discussion. The event will be in English with a live transcript and you can register for free via the website.