Create your future

Demographic development is one of the biggest challenges facing Mellersta Norrland. Declining population figures and an increasing proportion of older people contribute to a more complex picture. The demographic structure poses major challenges for the whole country, but the challenge is particularly difficult in Mellersta Norrland. 

The ESF project Create your future adresses these challenges. The project will design, test, validate and distribute digital models, structures and empowering networks to prevent or reduce youth exclusion taking into account individual and equal opportunities, accessibility, and gender equality. The project enhances continuing education and orientation toward working life. New ideas will be created using qualitative and quantitative methods and mixed methods (e.g. qualitative interviews, document analyses, content-based analysis, co-creational workshops, and quantitative assessments).

The project goals are to:

1. Create, test and validate digital concepts and structures to support youth in studying and working in Mellersta Norrland's sparsely populated areas.
2. Establish network models that promote collaboration between the education ssector, job market, businesses, and other organizations.

Supporting partners in the project are:

AW recruiting
The agency of youth and civil society
The Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italien
PARAGON-eduTech University of the Aegean, Greece
Bantani Education, Belgien
YES, Finland

The project outcomes are:

a) research and practice-based new knowledge of partnership creation, e.g., between the education sector and public and private employers,

b) models to support students to continue in education or toward working life, and to enhance students' acquisition of key competencies, including working life and digital skills,

c) concepts to develop organizations' structures,

d) supporting professionals material, and,

e) academic and public communication. 

Mid Sweden University is the project coordinator. Other partners are, for example, municipal representatives in Mellersta Norrland, organizations, authorities, companies, and other national and international organizations and employers supporting employability, student support, and promoting digital transition. Create your future emphasizes the realization of, among others, the national Youth Guarantee and the European Union's objective of “A more social and inclusive Europe''.