The European Union is now at a defining moment in its history: events such as Brexit, the latest US presidential election, and upcoming elections in various EU Member States make both citizens and decision-makers realise the need to refocus our attention on the essence of the European project and to debate the future of European cooperation. Citizens seem to be divided on whether stronger cooperation would be necessary in order to cope with current challenges such as youth unemployment, rising economic inequality or climate change, or whether a return to a more national perspective would be a more suitable response to the challenges that globalisation has brought to us. The aim of this strategic partnership is thus to strengthen the Shining Stars of Europe participation platform, as an innovative and powerful communication instrument using modern ICTs, existing social media participation, and creative cooperation mechanisms on the ground, to foster the dialogue between all European citizens. In order to achieve this objective, new participation and cooperation methods will be combined in the challenges presented by the contest, so that participants will need to show cooperation skills in order to reach a good result. Young people will thus need to cooperate in order to compete in solidarity and with a common goal. The strategic partnership will allow our organisations, in cooperation with the Estonian, Austrian, and Romanian EU Presidencies, to strengthen the Shining Stars participation platform by using ICTs in an innovative way in order to boost political participation all over Europe, most of all of young people. At least 600 young people shall participate directly in the project each year by submitting videos to the Shining Stars participation platform. These videos will contain video statements from more than 3000 European citizens from diverse backgrounds. Another 3000 young people from most EU Member States shall be involved directly by voting on the winners during finals in their cities. Online, the project is set to reach at least 100.000 people each year. Using a creative and flexible approach of conveying messages through short videos, the project aims to attract young people from diverse cultural and socio-economic backgrounds, who will be encouraged to interview citizens who normally find it difficult to participate in their societies. In terms of overall methodology, the project partners will use the critical chain project management. This methodology puts a primary focus on the resources needed to complete the project’s tasks. It begins by building a project schedule and identifying the most crucial tasks that need to be done - the “Critical Chain”, while reserving resource for those high-priority tasks. It also builds buffers of time around these tasks into the project’s schedule, which helps ensure the project meets its deadlines. The main impact of this strategic partnership will be the further development of the Shining Stars of Europe participation platform. This instrument empowers young people by giving them the chance to feed their ideas into a creative and innovative communication platform, on which they cooperate with their peers all across Europe and even beyond, and use moderns ICTs and video making to reach large audiences. The strategic partnership will explore new ways of cooperation which participants will be invited to engage in, combining positive competition with a variety of cooperative settings. The platform also aims to serve as a bridge builder between civil society and policy-makers, offering the winners to attend face-to-face meetings with key stakeholders in order to influence the future development of the European Union. Cooperation with the official European Youth Conferences and the EU Presidencies of Estonia, Austria, and Romania, will further ensure that the instrument is fully integrated into EU youth policy-making. In the medium to long term, the contest thereby aims to boost the development of European democracy. Participation and transparency shall be strengthened in order to guarantee that policy making contributes to the wellbeing of all citizens. Upon completion of the partnership, the Shining Stars participation platform will be ready to involve a larger number of participants in order to build bridges in public participation all over Europe. Innovative and creative participation mechanisms will have strengthened the platform. Different cultures, generations, and social spheres will be brought together around meaningful awareness raising and video journalism projects. Finally, cooperation with the educational sector in Europe shall be strengthened. Produced video clips can be used by teachers in different formats in order to provide input for school or university debates. And finally, EU institutions will be able to benefit from the platform as it bridges the gap between official institutions and civil society.
In the past years, the European Union had to embrace numerous challenges, including migration, climate change, populism and Brexit. Both citizens and decision-makers realised the need to refocus their attention on the essence of the European project and to debate the future of European cooperation. Citizens seemed to be divided on whether stronger European cooperation would be necessary in order to cope with current challenges such as youth unemployment, rising economic inequality or climate change, or whether a return to a more national perspective would be a more suitable response to the challenges that globalisation has brought to us. In light of these challenges, this partnership aimed to strengthen an innovative communication and cooperation instrument using modern ICTs, social media participation and creative cooperation mechanisms on the ground, in order to foster the dialogue between all European citizens. This instrument motivates young people in particular to think about their longer-term future and the decisive role the European Union in this regard. When developing their capacity to imagine, young people develop their ability to think for themselves and develop critical minds. Imagine Europe thus empowered young people by challenging them to use their own imagination to develop visions of our common future. The contest encouraged persons of all ages: • to reflect on possible solutions to issues of high concern to Europe and the world community • to contribute to the future development of the European Union • to communicate their ideas in powerful ways in order to inspire an increasing number of people to participate in the European Public Sphere. Imagine Europe further aimed to: • strengthen the link between citizens and decision-making structures; • foster young people’s interest in the debates at the European Parliament; • motivate participants to strengthen their awareness of important social achievements by their predecessors and to become familiar with important European and world literature; • give young people the opportunity to practice their writing, rhetorical and presentation skills. In total, the contest attracted around 1000 participants who cooperated in order to submit around 230 video clips on the platform. Over 300.000 people have followed the contest online via the website and social media. During public finals, around 300 people had the chance to vote on the winners out of a pool of 15 finalists who were selected by a European Jury. 9500 people voted on the videos online via the webpage of the partnership. The partnership included organisations from five EU countries. The leading partner, the Luxembourg Youth Conference, was responsible for the coordination with the network of European Youth Councils engaged in the European structured dialogue in the field of youth. Our Common Future Vienna, a community of experts and young professionals in the fields of political science, pedagogy, European history, and intercultural communication, was responsible for the design of the new participation platform while coordinating all partners. The Association April Hub from Craiova, Romania, was responsible for social media outreach, photography and the involvement of Eastern European countries. Arcok Studio from Hungary was responsible for film production during finals and transnational meetings as well as for the promotion of the contest. The Estonian National Youth Council (ENL) organised finals of the contest during a European conference in Tallinn and was responsible for the involvement of Northern countries. The five partners also set up a team of 50 Imagine Europe Ambassadors who promoted the platform in all EU countries and beyond. These associated partners organised local presentation meetings, presented the platform on radio and tv channels and produced video promotion clips. Using a creative and flexible approach of conveying messages through short videos, the project attracted young people from diverse cultural and socio-economic backgrounds and included citizens who normally find it difficult to participate in social activities. The strategic partnership thus successfully developed the Shining Stars of Europe participation platform into a new instrument with a substantially broader outreach and greater effectiveness in reaching out to marginalised people. The new platform also serves as a bridge builder between civil society and policymakers, with finalists and winners being invited to face-to-face meetings with key stakeholders while receiving opportunities to influence the future development of the European Union. In the medium to long term, the contest promotes participation and transparency while strengthening the European project. The Imagine Europe participation platform is now ready to motivate a large number of young participants to imagine their common European future.