Abstract
This paper strives to reflect on development and main achievements, as well as the main challenges related to ―youth policy‖ in Europe in last several decades. It provides an overview of the ways in which the concept of ―youth‖ has been structured, as well as its implications on the ―youth policy design. An overview of the current youth policy agenda of the main European institutions is also provided. What brings new light and raises many challenges in this regard, are the results of the Edgeryders project [1] representing a Think Tank of citizen experts working on a policy document concerning the transition of youth to an independent active life, on behalf of the Council of Europe [2] and the European Commission. Reflecting on experience of the project participants, the main challenges of the existing youth policy framework, especially related to social innovation, were described and discussed, based on the ethnographic report[3], an overview of the genuine material produced by the project participants through the online platform, and overview of the existing literature[4]. As a member of the Pool of European Youth Researchers (PEYR), the author especially emphasizes the value of this project in connecting young people, researchers and the decision makers/ institutions at the European level through joint effort in exploring challenging and complex reality, and developing innovative strategies in order to address it in line with the message expressed by one of the participants ―“The system requires a Reset”.
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