Consortium launches Active Youth Hub project for disadvantaged young people

A consortium project that aims to develop employability skills for disadvantaged young people in Greece, Romania and the Netherlands started with a launch meeting in early February. The project is led by associate professor Dr Dimitrios Vlachopoulos of Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSM), and has just been awarded a € 250,000 grant funded by the European Commission under an Erasmus+ programme called Cooperation Partnerships for Youth. The project also aims to provide policy makers with standards and recommendations on how to integrate active citizenship and entrepreneurship as a priority in the existing strategies and policies at EU level.

Dr Vlachopoulos’ research subjects are online education, talent development, and digital transformation – a true match with the emphases in the Active Youth Hub project, which will work on developing active citizenship, and entrepreneurial and digital skills for young people in the three countries.

Handbook for youth workers

The two-year project started with a successful launch meeting on 10 February in Rotterdam, which initiated the team and established the methodology for the creation of a handbook for youth workers, the project’s website, and a dissemination strategy.

The handbook is one of four desired intellectual outcomes for the Active Youth Hub, and will contain evidence-informed resources, good practices and methodologies for developing digital skills, entrepreneurial skills and active citizenship.

Supporting employability

Dr Vlachopoulos explains why the consortium will be focusing on these three countries in particular: “Greece and Romania appear very low in the rankings at EU level for the ways that they support employability of young people, including those with disadvantages. In the Netherlands, the situation is significantly better, but, still, the labour market faces several challenges. RSM can provide the consortium with high quality outputs to address this issue,” he said.

The consortium aims to create a digital escape room for the development of entrepreneurial skills and active citizenship; a card game for the development entrepreneurial skills and active citizenship; and a report with policy recommendations on improving employability of young people through the development of digital, entrepreneurial skills and active citizenship.

Other members of the consortium are:

Stimmuli for Social Change, a social enterprise in Greece
YouthFully Yours, a youth association in Greece
International Debate Education Association (IDEA) in the Netherlands
Friends of Children in Romania, an NGO in Romania
Ofensiva Tinerilor, a youth association in Romania.

The grant will allow the consortium to develop the four intellectual outputs, organise three multiplier events – one in each country – to disseminate the project’s activities, and to host a concluding conference in two years’ time.

More information

Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSM) is one of Europe’s top-ranked business schools. RSM provides ground-breaking research and education furthering excellence in all aspects of management and is based in the international port city of Rotterdam – a vital nexus of business, logistics and trade. RSM’s primary focus is on developing business leaders with international careers who can become a force for positive change by carrying their innovative mindset into a sustainable future. Our first-class range of bachelor, master, MBA, PhD and executive programmes encourage them to become critical, creative, caring and collaborative thinkers and doers. www.rsm.nl

For more information about RSM or this release, please contact Erika Harriford-McLaren, communications manager for RSM, on +31 10 408 2877 or by email at harriford@rsm.nl.