Starting in May 2021, CEPS launched a new edition of its “Young Thinkers Initiative”. CEPS selected 30 brilliant young minds from over 20 different countries, who will be engaged in a series of activities over the next year. The aim of the project is to give young people a platform to express their ideas and bring fresh and innovative perspectives to the policy scene. The initiative forms part of a wider initiative, the CEPS Sustainable Diversity Goals (SDGs), an Open Society Foundation funded project, which aims to promote diversity in the field of research and make our policy events more diverse and gender-balanced.
The Young Thinkers Initiative had its opening event within CEPS flagship event, Ideas Lab, between May 31st and June 4th 2021. The Young Thinkers took part in guided foresight sessions, they were amongst the first to test a new gamification tool and they had the opportunity to present their ideas to policymakers in a high-level roundtable. The theme of the activities was focused on the future of Europe and citizen engagement. The final roundtable has been an official event of the Conference on the Future of Europe.
CEPS plans to organize a series of events throughout the year, to engage the Young Thinkers Class of 2021 and ensure a fruitful policy debate. Among such activities, CEPS will hold a cycle of five webinars and conferences, named “Over to Youth: a CEPS series”. These events will focus on five different topics featuring five different young speakers from each continent. In this way, we plan not only to engage young people in policy debates affecting their future, but also to include diverse perspectives and encourage inter-cultural discussions.
