The DON’T GIVE UP  proposal for for WIDESPREAD-05-2017 Twinning had been submitted in collaboration with our partners at University of Groningen and Leiden University in Netherlands  and Galway University in Ireland.

The aim is to improve our capacities in research on vulnerable populations and in supporting national evidence-based policies to improve their health, along with WHO Europe, the state ministries, local NGOs and other stakeholders. The consortium is optimally configured to accelerate the development of UPJS following two parallel strategies: 1) To increase UPJS scientific capacities needed for development of multifaceted and participatory evidence-based-policies, which will enhance its legitimacy and effectiveness in promoting young people’s potential, currently in peril because of socio-economic developments, 2) To increase UPJS’ capacity to export its expertise in knowledge translation to the wider Central and East European region. To reach these goals, collaboration has been established with advanced partners who excel in the methodologies required (e.g. participatory research, mixed methods, stakeholder involvement), and in (research on) vulnerable youth (e.g. lifestyle, societal deprivation, health and social care). Moreover, they excel in training and coaching junior and senior researchers, and in establishing a setting for top-research (e.g. leadership, institutional embedding, acquirement of means). DON’T GIVE UP will enable the UPJS team to become an established excellent European research centre regarding vulnerable youth. Excellence will be achieved through the training in state-of-the-art quality approaches in scientific research, and collaboration in knowledge translation from the advanced partners to the coordinating institution, based on an extensive audit of gaps in the related capacities.

We don’t give up in trying to improve, and therefore labelled our consortium DON’T GIVE UP. Keep fingers crossed with our team, evaluation results will be announced in APRIL 2018.