YouCount Youth Citizen Social Science

Exploring opportunities and facilitators for social inclusion of youth across Europe

YouCount is a 3-year Youth Citizen Social Science project. Funded by EU Horizon 2020, it was formed to co-create new knowledge and innovations to address how to increase social inclusion for young people.

What is YouCount?

YouCount aims to address a pressing challenge for Europe: How to increase social inclusion for young people. It examines youth’s perspectives on three aspects of social inclusion – participation, belonging and citizenship. The project has two major strands of inquiry:

Generating knowledge about social inclusion and how to create social change through the involvement of young citizen scientists
Contributing to the scientific knowledge base for Y-CSS for scaling up.

In line with the EU Youth Strategy and official EU definitions, the project includes young people from a wide age range – 13 to 29 years old and focuses on those youths most at risk of marginalisation in terms of poverty, migration, disability, low education, unemployment, and disenfranchisement.

YouCount has six objectives which are delivered through six work packages:

Support Citizen Science and the social sciences by developing a conceptual and methodological framework for youth citizen social science YCSS (WP1)
Implement hands-on citizen social science through a multiple case study of Y-CSS projects in nine countries across Europe (WP2)
Develop new social science knowledge of social inclusion, including identifying major drivers for the social inclusion of youths and new/better social innovations/policy-making to co-create positive social change (WP3)
Provide evidence of the costs and benefits of Y-CSS and the individual outcomes of Y-CSS from the multiple case study (WP4).
Maximise the social impact of the project and contribute to youth policy and a model for innovative community actions and sustainable community engagement (WP3, 4 & 5).
Maximise the scientific impact of the project by creating synergies with other Citizen Science projects and initiatives. Also by the coproduction and open science dissemination of a series of practical tools (practitioner handbooks, teaching modules, evaluation tools and science recommendation guidelines) based on cutting-edge and contextually rooted empirical research. (WP5, WP6)

Dr Julie Ridley leads WP2 and manages the UK case study. The local case is a place-based study of belonging and explores youth’s experiences and views of social inclusion in Preston. We are engaging with young people from across Preston as young citizen scientists (YCS) and young students at UCLan as co-researchers in the research team, and through using an App to map opportunities for social inclusion and to identify what supports social inclusion of young people in the City. In a ‘Living Lab’ with YCS and other stakeholders, we will work on ideas and solutions to increase inclusion. Youth involvement in YouCount is designed to increase citizenship, broaden science literacy and trust, and develop sustainable solutions to issues that young people identify.

The impact of YOUCOUNT is both scientific and seeks to address the societal needs of our time:

The scientific vision of YOUCOUNT is to strengthen the transformative and participatory aspects of Citizen Science in the social sciences, by envisioning citizen participation in all facets, reaching out for a more egalitarian view of research, which aligns with shaping the future of citizens and civic organisations.
The societal vision of YOUCOUNT is to contribute to creating inclusive, innovative and reflective societies for European youths and to empower them in promoting active citizenship and a just and equitable future, particularly for disadvantaged young people

Centre for Citizenship and Community

Prof Julie Ridley, Centre for Citizenship and Community
Suzanne Wilson, Centre for Citizenship and Community
Prof Julian Manley, Centre for Citizenship and Community

Others staff members

Dr Joanna Brown, Widening Participation and Public Engagement team

Former staff members

Professor David Morris
Farwa Batool
Ceri Holman
Dr Deborah Crook

Student Citizen Scientists in the team

Gillian Holt, PhD student
Maria Turda, PhD student
Salma Mohamed Qasim, PhD student
Jade Millray, Undergraduate student

External contractor

Garry Cook, independent documentary photographer

In November a group of young people in Preston were invited to training sessions to learn what the YouCount project is all about. The aim was to equip them with the necessary skills to become youth citizen scientists in community research.
Tuesday 1 August 2023
A team of social science academics and young students are exploring 'community belonging' along with young citizen scientists in the UK. The key goal is to identify with the young citizen scientists, new ways to ensure young people feel they belong and are included in Preston.
Wednesday 7 June 2023

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YouCount Youth Citizen Social Science

Exploring opportunities and facilitators for social inclusion of youth across Europe

What is YouCount?

Impact

Key staff members

Related research

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Leading change with young people in Preston

Creating a space for young people at our first Living Lab

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