Critical ChangeLab (2023-2026)

The Horizon EU funded Critical Changelab is a consortium project with 10 project partners from all around Europe. University of Oulu is the coordinator for the project. The project aims to build a resilient European democracy by reinvigorating the relationship between youth and democracy through civic interventions, in which young people envision alternative futures for (shared) European democracy, and act on that.

I work as a project manager for the whole Critical Changelab project, but also actively take part in research when possible. As a project manager, I have a diverse range of responsibilities, including coordinating partner contributions and reporting progress to funding bodies, as well as organizing and overseeing internal quality control procedures like peer reviews. I am responsible for developing and updating project documents, including the data management plan and risk assessment, and I lead meetings for various working groups, like the project management team and the project General Assembly. Additionally, I coordinate and facilitate external advisory board meetings, including ethics, expert and youth advisory boards, and compile reports for the General Assembly. My role also involves close monitoring of ethics-related activities throughout the project, and communication and dissemination activities, such as speaking in different events as a representative of the project.

My duties in research and workshop planning include taking part in working groups planning research during different stages of the project, carrying out said research in our local context and reporting on the results.

I carried out the qualitative research segment of the project, aiming to collect data that will allow gaining knowledge and comparison of European youth perspectives on everyday democracy. This was accomplished through ten case studies on groups of young people that are growing up in challenging contexts for the development and practice of everyday democracy will be conducted. The Oulu case study concentrated in youth growing up in substitute care in a children’s home in Oulu, as well as their instructors. I carried out an in-depth case study with them consisting of semi-structured interviews with the instructors (n=5), a focus group with the youth (n=9 participants) and comprised an ethnographic account of the case. The results were summarized for project deliverables, and will be later analyzed further for academic research.

The project aims at developing a model of democratic pedagogy, which is then tested and evaluated with local youth in ten different countries in three Participatory action research cycles throughout the project. I am a part of the working group that plans and carries these PAR cycles out in our institution. My focus in the planning has been on helping youth exploring different topics related to every day democracy to turn their ideas into artifacts and experiences into advocacy. In an example workshop designed by me, the youth exploring topics like youth marginalization, polarization of society, or pressures caused by social media first learned the basics of 2D design using Inkscape, and used hands-on digital fabrication processes like laser cutting or vinyl cutting to create items with a meaningful message, that they wanted to share with the community. These activities provided an empowering experience for them, and underlined the Critical Changelab commitment to bridging thought and action.

  • participating youth ideating topics for group work
  • Mindmap exploring marginalization of youth
  • Mindmap exploring pressures caused by social media
  • Helping youth to work on 2D design with Inkscape, preparing an image for the vinyl cutter
  • Helping youth working on 2D design with Inkscape, preparing an image for the laser cutter
  • Getting messages ready to be pressed on canvas
  • Turning ideas and experiences into artifacts with a message
  • Turning ideas and experiences into artifacts with a message
  • With project partners presenting the work done at NECE 2023, in Madrid

Invited talks and workshops

  • “Democracy meets arts” at NECE Festival Madrid 2023. With project partners from Institute of Social Research in Zagreb, University of Barcelona, and European Alternatives.
  • “Reimaigining civic education by cultivating more than human care” at NECE campus 2023. With project partners from University of Oulu, Trinity College Dublin, European Alternatives and Ars Electronica

Publications

Digital footprints