Shining Stars of Europe – Our Union by 2025 Erasmus Project

Project Title

Shining Stars of Europe – Our Union by 2025

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for youth

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Creativity and culture; EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy

Project Summary

In the past years, the European Union had to embrace numerous challenges, including migration, climate change, populism and Brexit. Both citizens and decision-makers realised the need to refocus their attention on the essence of the European project and to debate the future of European cooperation. Citizens seemed to be divided on whether stronger European cooperation would be necessary in order to cope with current challenges such as youth unemployment, rising economic inequality or climate change, or whether a return to a more national perspective would be a more suitable response to the challenges that globalisation has brought to us.
In light of these challenges, this partnership aimed to strengthen an innovative communication and cooperation instrument using modern ICTs, social media participation and creative cooperation mechanisms on the ground, in order to foster the dialogue between all European citizens. This instrument motivates young people in particular to think about their longer-term future and the decisive role the European Union in this regard. When developing their capacity to imagine, young people develop their ability to think for themselves and develop critical minds. Imagine Europe thus empowered young people by challenging them to use their own imagination to develop visions of our common future.

The contest encouraged persons of all ages:
• to reflect on possible solutions to issues of high concern to Europe and the world community
• to contribute to the future development of the European Union
• to communicate their ideas in powerful ways in order to inspire an increasing number of people to participate in the European Public Sphere.
Imagine Europe further aimed to:
• strengthen the link between citizens and decision-making structures;
• foster young people’s interest in the debates at the European Parliament;
• motivate participants to strengthen their awareness of important social achievements by their predecessors and to become familiar with important European and world literature;
• give young people the opportunity to practice their writing, rhetorical and presentation skills.

In total, the contest attracted around 1000 participants who cooperated in order to submit around 230 video clips on the platform. Over 300.000 people have followed the contest online via the website and social media. During public finals, around 300 people had the chance to vote on the winners out of a pool of 15 finalists who were selected by a European Jury. 9500 people voted on the videos online via the webpage of the partnership.
The partnership included organisations from five EU countries. The leading partner, the Luxembourg Youth Conference, was responsible for the coordination with the network of European Youth Councils engaged in the European structured dialogue in the field of youth. Our Common Future Vienna, a community of experts and young professionals in the fields of political science, pedagogy, European history, and intercultural communication, was responsible for the design of the new participation platform while coordinating all partners. The Association April Hub from Craiova, Romania, was responsible for social media outreach, photography and the involvement of Eastern European countries.
Arcok Studio from Hungary was responsible for film production during finals and transnational meetings as well as for the promotion of the contest.
The Estonian National Youth Council (ENL) organised finals of the contest during a European conference in Tallinn and was responsible for the involvement of Northern countries.
The five partners also set up a team of 50 Imagine Europe Ambassadors who promoted the platform in all EU countries and beyond. These associated partners organised local presentation meetings, presented the platform on radio and tv channels and produced video promotion clips. Using a creative and flexible approach of conveying messages through short videos, the project attracted young people from diverse cultural and socio-economic backgrounds and included citizens who normally find it difficult to participate in social activities.
The strategic partnership thus successfully developed the Shining Stars of Europe participation platform into a new instrument with a substantially broader outreach and greater effectiveness in reaching out to marginalised people. The new platform also serves as a bridge builder between civil society and policymakers, with finalists and winners being invited to face-to-face meetings with key stakeholders while receiving opportunities to influence the future development of the European Union.
In the medium to long term, the contest promotes participation and transparency while strengthening the European project. The Imagine Europe participation platform is now ready to motivate a large number of young participants to imagine their common European future.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 59166,01 Eur

Project Coordinator

CONFERENCE GENERALE DE LA JEUNESSE DU LUXEMBOURG & Country: LU

Project Partners

• ARCOK Stúdio Kft
• Eesti Noorteühenduste Liit MTÜ
• Our Common Future Vienna
• Asociatia April Hub