PROMoting youth Involvement and Social Engagement: Opportunities and challenges for 'conflicted' young people across Europe - PROMISE

Promoting Youth Involvement and Social Engagement (PROMISE) is a major EU funded research project which aims to explore young people’s role in shaping society; past, present and future.

The project brings together twelve collaborating centres in Estonia, Finland, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, the Russian Federation, Croatia and the UK.

PROMISE explores the experiences of young people who encounter conflicts and/or are stigmatized. We contend that these ‘conflicted youth’ are seen to be the most problematic in terms of positive social engagement, often triggering negative and punitive responses from authority, in turn furthering marginalisation and stigmatisation. The negative effects of stigma and marginalisation reduce opportunities for young people to engage positively in social action, and as a result, much of the creativity, innovation and energy within these groups is directed away from positive social change. PROMISE believes that conflicted youth present significant opportunities for change and should therefore be the prime focus of policy makers and practitioners.

This project is funded under the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme, Grant Agreement no. 693221. It runs for three years from May 2016 to April 2019.