UNESCO Youth as Researchers: Exploring the Impact of COVID-19

The Youth As Researchers (YAR) global initiative on COVID-19 connects and engages with young people to conduct research on the impacts of COVID-19 on young people and the responses young people have implemented to tackle these.

The project is spearheaded by Youth as Researchers, a program that gives teens and young adults between the ages of 15 and 24 the opportunity to study a problem that affects them or their community, and then use that information to make a difference.

Looking for fully-funded opportunities, install the Youth Opportunities Android or iOS App here.

The program is under the umbrella of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, known as UNESCO, which encourages peace and universal respect for human rights by promoting collaboration among nations. Penn State is home to one of only 18 UNESCO chairs in the U.S.

UNESCO is funding the research, supplemented with in-kind contributions from Penn State, National University of Ireland, Galway and the Make A Difference Leadership Foundation in South Africa.

UNESCO and the UNESCO Chairs at the National University of Ireland Galway (NUIG) and Penn State University (PSU) lead a consortium of youth-led or youth-related actors to support the research through training, mentoring, and coordination.

Five themes were selected to define the overall scope of investigations:

• well-being
• learning
• use of technology
• human rights
• youth action
• A global survey was conducted to determine, within this framework, the key issues of concern for young people, which will inform the focus of the research conducted.

Young people can be involved in a number of ways:

• Their project team includes young people from NUIG, PSU, UNESCO and our partners including five young people who are part of the Steering Committee
• Research teams of young people will work together to design and conduct the research
• Other young people will be research participants, responding to surveys, participating in interviews and focus groups
• Young people will also be able to be reviewers of the research, an important step before publication of the results
• And finally, young people will be included in the evaluation at the end of the project
• They will provide on-going support to help the participants work through each stage of the research process from design to publishing results, including how to deal with problems, roadblocks and anything else that arises.
• There is no fee for being involved in this project and all participation is voluntary and unremunerated.
• You don’t need prior research experience as training to do the research will be provided. Researchers will receive training, certificates and be part of publishing the research.