European Future Citizens

<< Background >>Urban development has focused on smart infrastructure, often overlooking the need to prepare citizens—especially young people—for life in digital and sustainable cities. To address this, the EC introduced competence frameworks to strengthen entrepreneurial, digital, soft, and life skills, and to promote awareness of individual roles in the green transition.Several challenges need to be addressed:•Limited youth participation in civic life;•Insufficient skills and competencies among young people to fully participate in active citizenship;•Inability to effectively identify local needs, understand barriers, and design practical, community-based solutions;•Lack of integrated, innovative learning pathways combining entrepreneurial, digital, soft, and green skills into a coherent educational experience;•Minimal application of the EC’s competence frameworks (e.g., GreenComp), in real-world, local contexts; and•Shortage of engaging, hands-on, and gamified educational approaches. The Future Citizens project addressed these by placing young people at the center of the vision for “future cities,” empowering them with skills, knowledge, and opportunities needed to become proactive, informed, and engaged citizens. << Objectives >>Objectives:To develop a new competence framework based on the framework designed by the EC JRC, the CitizensComp to be used in community actions to expand the group of citizens interested in codesign solutions for community issues and challenges;To develop a model for community challenge monitoring to help the Future and Actual citizens measure and understand which are the most urgent community topics; To develop a capacity-building model for young people to become community problem solvers by applying product and service ideation and design methodologies. This model will be based on the educational methods of challenge-based learning, wherein young people will be presented with concrete local challenges and tools to codesign solutions and test them;To develop a gamified approach to the entire process to be the “gym” for the young people that will learn how to build their competences while being engaged in a gamified experience, impacting both the community and the individuals; andTo engage policymakers to activate community-based “open forums” that will map, discuss, and activate the resources needed to solve community challenges.<< Implementation >>- Desk research on the EC Comps- Organized Focus Groups in each country- Designed a competence framework and a map of challenges- Design of the capacity building program- Developed the capacity-building tools using a gamified approach, including detailed game rules.- Organized a face-to-face workshop with young people to co-create and define the game content.- Conducted game testing and collected feedback from youth participants to refine the experience.- Developed an online platform to support and scale the game and related activities.- Designed a comprehensive communication strategy to engage stakeholders and promote the initiative.- Organized five local Citizenthons across partner countries.- Hosted one European Citizenthon in Portugal.- Drafted and published the Future Citizen Manifesto.- Held local conferences in partner countries, gathering stakeholder support and collecting signatures for the Letter of Commitment.- Convened a European conference in Aarhus, Denmark, bringing together partners and stakeholders for final presentations and discussions.- Held 3 face-to-face partner meetings; and online meetings in between - Conducted project dissemination << Results >>Achievements:Developed a Competence Framework for Future EU CitizensDeveloped 1 Capacity Building Program (in ENG, IT, PT, RO, EE, DK)Developed the Digital Future Citizens Game (https://futurecitizens.eu/)Developed 1 Online platform https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVNCyp2ZQ=/ ), used to collect all the challenges and solutions identified by young people, and served as a space for idea generation.Developed and maintained a website (https://www.europeanfuturecitizens.eu/)Conducted 5 Local Citizenthons in Italy, Portugal, Romania, Estonia, Denmark with a total of 48 participantsConducted a European Citizenthon in Portugal with 30 participants from IT, PT, RO, EE, DKHeld local multiplier events in IT, RO, EE with a total of 170 attendees Mapped a total of 117 local stakeholders Mapped a total of 125 Stakeholders at the EU level1 Dissemination Campaign (FB: https://www.facebook.com/EuropeanFutureCitizensEu). People reached: xxxxDiverse dissemination activities drew over 1.740 unique visitors to the website and reached 8.326 people and 12 organisations, surpassing initial targets.Produced 2 quality Assurance and Evaluation Reports; 1 Quality Management PlanA total of 385 participants directly participated in the project.