Join the YouCount team in Brussels on December 4-5 or connect, from wherever you are, to participate. Participation is free.
YouCount’s researchers and young citizen scientists will present and discuss key insights and findings from the project with a wide array of stakeholders and policymakers working with science policy or social inclusion. Partners from other EU projects aiming to develop participatory citizen science in the social sciences will also be present.
The Final Conference will have a dynamic format involving interactive sessions, presentations and round-tables discussions. It also features a travelling exhibition co-created with young citizen scientists. The overall aim is to inspire knowledge and skills necessary for conducting hands on citizen social science (CSS).
Read more about the conference on YouCount's EU page (youcountproject.eu).
Learning points
You can expect to learn about actual outcomes, costs- and benefits of co-creative citizen science, following YouCount’s aim of supporting citizen social science in research and innovation institutions and enhancing collaboration between science and society.
Moreover, the research team will showcase how Youth Citizen Social Science can contribute to new knowledge about drivers for social inclusion and discuss their implications, together with different approaches for working with local stakeholders to foster social innovation and inclusive policymaking.
How to navigate the conference?
In order to warm up ideas, a pre-seminar will take place in the Nordic house on Monday 4 December. The main focus will be on how to conduct Youth Citizen Social Science in practice, based on lessons learned from the project’s ten case studies.
You may then visit the travelling exhibition or wait until Tuesday December 5, to visit it at the Hotel Berlaymont, where the Final Conference will take place.
Preliminary program Tuesday December 5
Session 1: Introduction to the YouCount project
Professor Alan Irwin will contextualise the project in his introductory speech about the history and future of citizen social science.
This will be followed by a presentation by the Project Adviser and Project Officer Katharina Buse from the Research Executive Agency (REA), relating YouCount to the overall ambition of the H2020 Science with and for Society programme.
Session 2: Key findings and experiences related to the development, practices and evaluation of youth citizen social science
After presentations of key findings, in a roundtable discussion format, young citizen scientists, representatives from the European Commission, academia and related EU citizen science projects will reflect on how citizen social science can be further improved and supported.
Confirmed participants in the discussions are:
- Head of Unit Michael Arentoft from the European Commission, or Policy Officer Gabriella Leo from the European Commission, DG R&I, Open science and Research Infrastructure Unit,
- Professor of Theory of Science Dick Kasperowski from Gothenburg University,
- Scientific Coordinator Alessia Smaniotto and COESO project coordinator,
- and Science Adviser Asya Salnikova from the Time4Cs project.
Session 3: Findings from YouCount on social inclusion and innovation - implications for social sciences and social and youth policymaking
Young citizen scientists, social scientists will share their perspectivs, including
- Josep Perelló, CoAct project coordinator
- OpenSystems-UB research and key stakeholders such as Deputy head of Unit Mina Stareva from the European Commission, Fair Societies & Cultural Heritage,
- representatives from the European Youth Forum (names later),
- Sandra Paola Alvarez from the International Organisation of Migration Europe
- and Tomas De Groote from Sociale InnovatieFabriek.
Session 4: You Count’s overall impact and way forward in the European and international context.
This session will feature
- Claudia Fabó Cartas, Project officer at ECSA and Project Manager of the EU-funded project ECS,
- and Laone Bukamu Hulela, Director of Youth Alliance for Leadership and Development in Africa (YALDA), who will share closing remarks.
Some more highlights to look forward to
- A conceptual and methodological framework for hands on youth citizen social science involving young people that are often further away from science in co-creative research and innovation.
- Experiences and lessons learned from developing an ICT tool for citizen social science (the YouCount App Toolkit) including ethical and GDPR challenges.
- Citizen social science as dialogical practice and inclusive science communication.
- Young peoples’ experiences with participating in the project as a citizen scientist and their views on how to make citizen science more youth-friendly.
- How youth citizen social science can be used to contribute to social innovation processes.
- Lessons learned concerning processes and outcomes of citizen social science and evaluation designs.
- New knowledge of young peoples’ views on social inclusion and positive drivers for social inclusion through Youth citizen social science.
- Implications for science and social policy and how to move forward.
