Young People and Science in Society Issues: a European Network

After the parisian seminar in april, the Ypssi members rewrote the identity paper of the network. Here the text:

OUR IDENTITY
YPSSI is a permanent open European network focused on Youth, Knowledge and Europe. The key-axis around which the activities of the network revolve is the involvement of young Europeans in knowledge, society, participation and European issues as much as their empowerment on these topics.

OUR MOTIVATION
YPSSI was officially initiated in 2008 by European associations and institutions to reflect on and to propose concrete actions in order to contribute to the building of a democratic European knowledge-based society.
Today, Europe is facing an economic and financial crisis unlike any seen before. The EU approach stresses the need for common strategies that promote European principles and long-term goals. Europe 2020 Strategy puts forward three mutually reinforcing priorities: smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. It means to invest urgently in knowledge and innovation, to develop a more sustainable economy and to promote social inclusion and territorial cohesion.
The YPSSI network, in order to get out of the crisis and to shape together the future of Europe, emphasizes also the need to reinforce the participatory processes of decision-making, especially on science, technology, knowledge and educative policies, to insist on collaboration as basic element for governments and to build a foresight culture. But working together means to include also the voices of young people.
The aim of YPSSI network is to reconstruct the trust of young people in decision-making mechanisms, to foster their commitment to participation in public life and to empower them on knowledge and European issues in order to allow young people to dialogue with leaders and to carry out coordinated actions across Europe and the world.

OUR VALUES
• We see ourselves as Europeans and consider Europe as a never-ending ideal and a common horizon. The global economical and political crisis motives us to invest even more in this crucial objective.
• We believe that no single one of us has easy solutions for the current challenges such as overcoming the social and economical crisis, promoting international cooperation, designing sustainability.
• For this reason, we intend to invest on collective and cooperative intelligence processes and innovations.
• We consider youth as one of the main actors in actions for the future and we believe that it’s capital to involve directly young people in participatory processes and experimentations.
• Thus, we aim to dedicate means and time to intergenerational transmission activities, in view to articulate the young people’s autonomy needs to the necessity of transmission from older generations
• We believe that one of the keys to improve our respective future societies and to achieve a stable European society is the sharing of experiences between young people from different countries and from different social backgrounds.
• We attribute paramount importance to the democratisation of access to knowledge, science, technology and to the debate on these issues in order to build a democratic knowledge-based society.
• We think that cooperation between young Europeans - through peer to peer mentoring and intergenerational mentoring – could strengthen European identity and citizenship and help the building of a culture of foresight.
• We believe in the importance of encouraging participation of European youth in transnational dialogue with young people and organisations from China, India, Brazil, Canada in order to improve international cooperation and synergies in different knowledge domains.

OUR AIMS
As a network we act at European level to promote an open, effective and democratic European knowledge society by diminishing barriers to the participation of civil society. To reach this crucial goal we intend:

• To increase the collective skills and competences of the organisations members of the YPSSI network developing new methods and tools in view to improve young people participation.
• To enlarge and to diversify the social basis and origin of young people involved in YPSSI activities.
• To improve and to empower young people’s autonomy and strengthen their competences connecting them to knowledge through dialogue with experts, scientists, policy-makers.
• To offer young people opportunities to increase their social and intellectual skills and competences and to facilitate their participation in the dialogue with European and international institutions through seminars, training workshops and mobility.
• To organise foresight panels involving young Europeans in order to support them in integrating the notions of complexity and interdependence implicit in society. Foresight exercises are a key technique to achieve the exploration of their future perspectives and thereby create new insights in the future of European knowledge society.
• To feed their open-mindedness about knowledge and issues at large, on research activities and jobs but also on emerging science and society interfaces which could provide new opportunities to make their future concrete.

OUR MEANS
• Each organisation member of the YPSSI Open European network has developed specific methods on youth participation as well as knowledge issues
• Some members of the YPSSI network are members of multiple networks and thus can facilitate relations between the different networks.
• Our scientific council, called Group 38 (G38), produces free, permanent and open debate spaces where initiatives can be discussed, developed and supported.

OUR GOVERNANCE
• YPSSI network reunite organisations, young people and scientists from each European country.
• We share, as members of the network, our respective skills, knowledge and local experiences.
• We organise regularly meeting and seminars to take collective decisions.
• Our representatives meet regularly with European and worldwide associations, networks, institutions and decision-makers.