InvigoratEU Youth Resilience Labs – A Young Perspective on Enlargement and Neighbourhood Policy

A key objective of the InvigoratEU project was to engage young European citizens and ensure that their perspectives were integrated into the project’s research and policy recommendation development process. The InvigoratEU Youth Resilience Labs were created to serve this purpose. Through an interactive co-production approach, project partners and young participants worked together to explore key themes related to EU enlargement, neighbourhood relations and geopolitical challenges. Participants contributed their lived experiences, concerns, and expectations regarding Europe’s geopolitical future.

Across the labs, 476 young Europeans from 16 European member states and neighbouring countries participated. In total, they developed more than 500 concrete recommendations addressed to policy-makers and the educational sector.  For this report, these contributions have been systematically analysed, clustered, and translated into core recommendation areas relevant for policymakers and the education sector.

In terms of political and policy change, several recommendations featured repeatedly across many labs. One of them was to abolish unanimity in Council decision-making. Also improving EU communication was an recurrent demand express by participants. Enlargement, Security and Defense Policy as well as the Rule of Law where other thematic clusters many of the recommendations focused on.

Regarding the educational sector, participants call for improved education on the European Union on the one hand, as well as a general focus on civic education on the other, to support values such as democracy and the Rule of Law. Additionally, participants demand more exchange programmes for a broader segment of society.

The Youth Resilience Labs contributed to InvigoratEU in several significant ways. First, they made it possible to incorporate forms of knowledge that conventional research methods would not have accessed. By involving a diverse group of young people, the project gained insights that strengthen both the analytical work and the final policy recommendations. The participants’ reflections on enlargement, security cooperation, and resilience provide a grounded perspective that complements expert-driven policy debates.

Second, the labs aligned with InvigoratEU’s broader ambition to strengthen engagement and democratic participation. Participants were invited to reflect on and deliberate about the future of Europe, the EU’s geopolitical role, and the way young people are prepared to navigate and contribute to a complex multi-level political system. Feedback from participants indicates that the experience was highly valued and that the format supported meaningful engagement and learning.

Several Conclusions can be drawn from the InvigoratEU Youth Resilience Labs. Firstly, involving young Europeans in this form in our research process and more generally discussions on EU enlargement and resilience has proven worthwhile, both in terms of the insights gained as well as the obvious interest of our participants to engage in these discussions. In terms of enlargement, it is specifically accession criteria and formats of gradual integration that participants focused on the most. Secondly, the EU’s capacity to act as an international actor has been a major concern for many participants and featured in nearly all labs. Thirdly, education on the European Union clearly needs improvement according to our participants, both within and beyond the EU.