YouCount travels to the US for the C*Sci23 conference

We are happy to announce that Cathrine Winther, Ph.D. student at the Aalborg University in Copenhagen who also leads the Danish YouCount case, will represent YouCount at the upcoming C*Sci23 conference in Phoenix, USA, with her poster "Co-creating youth engaging strategies - Experiences from youth citizen social science approaches". 

The poster on "Co-creating youth engaging strategies - Experiences from youth citizen social science approaches" shares the experiences, successes, and challenges of co-creating youth engaging strategies with young citizen social scientists aged 14-21 to address the problem of social exclusion of young people from Denmark, Norway, Spain and the UK. It further describes the work and approaches of four countries and cases. The case approaches lead to different co-created youth engaging strategies when planning, running, and sustaining a youth-involving project. Through the cases, youth (13-30 years) have in various ways been recruited as citizen social scientists investigating social exclusion challenges and innovating social inclusion drivers in their neighborhoods within the themes of either social belonging, social participation, or citizenship. By describing the countries Denmark, Norway, Spain and the United Kingdom, examples within each theme will be represented. The cases vary from investigating how to create civic engagement in the local environment through sustainable activities in Copenhagen, Denmark, finding and creating socially inclusive job opportunities in Oslo, Norway, indicating exclusion factors and finding new spaces for inclusion in San Sebastian, Spain, to finding a sense of belonging in Preston, UK. The youth investigations and work with local stakeholders have led to youth-engaging strategies presented at the poster. The abstract for the poster was co-written with YouCount researchers Farwa Batool, Ceri Holman, Gillian Holt and Salma Qasim (UK) and supported by Asier Zafra Elorza (Spain), Frederick A. Reiersen and Sara Berge Lorenzen (Norway).

Although it will be a long journey and it is supposed to be very hot there, I'm looking forward discussing Citizen Social Science with American researchers and its potential. But most of all, I'm proud being able to present the work and thoughts of YouCount's young co-researchers.

Cathrine Winther

The Citizen Science Association conference takes place from 22-26 May and convenes conversations across disciplines, roles, and perspectives. Participants seek and share the traditional and innovative practices that lead to powerful partnerships for discovery, learning, and action. The conference will be interdisciplinary in scope, inviting abstracts for cross-cutting symposia, interactive workshops, engaging talks, and dynamic posters. More information on the conference can be found here.