The STEP project aims to enhance the scientific capacity and innovation of the consortium partners, with a principal focus on the Instituto Politécnico de Bragança (IPB, Portugal), and to raise its research profile in the field of Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) throughout the cross-fertilisation with the Social Sciences and Humanities, in particular by introducing in the STEM domain the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) principles, that have considerable potential in terms of solving the global challenges for wellbeing and the quality of life. The 4 internationally research-intensive leading partners in the project will accompany and guide IPB. Resources and competencies will be shared and advanced across strategic plans for improving and empowering the IPBs capacity-building focus areas. The activities targeting the researchers and administrative and managerial staff will strengthen the scientific excellence, innovation capacity (non-academia/academia collaboration), and skills for research communication and societal acceptance (social sciences and humanities, SSH involvement, in the STEM area). Activities for researchers will include mobility rounds, master classes, training, industry and SSH mentoring, attendance at conferences and workshops. This project will lead to an increased number of high-impact articles, research grants, EU projects, service contracts to the international and non-academic sectors (respectful of the EDI principles), new research topics and wide-scale impact. The Twinning Programme will gradually shift focus from research to innovation-driven implementation of the promising research outcomes. Altogether, the EU-funded STEP project will help the IPB become a regional actor for EDI/STEM innovation studies.

The objective of this project is to re-kindle trust in democracy and to re-invigorate engagement with democratic institutions and values in Europe. We plan to achieve this by co-creating solutions to the crisis of democracy, by designing and implementing strategies, which counter opposition to equality and democracy and by supporting citizens and activists working in this field. CCINDLE works directly with feminist grassroots activists and institutional actors, feminist and pro-democratic media, young Europeans, philanthropic organizations thinktanks, and gender professionals. We co-create knowledge on i) anti-gender campaigns and how they challenge democracy, particularly through political violence and alternative knowledge production; ii) futures of society envisioned in feminist theories and how they relate to democracy in Europe with respect to intersectional justice, inclusion, and participation; iii) feminist movement and institutional responses to anti-gender and other anti-democratic forces. We focus on seven European countries with different social and political backgrounds, and the EU level. This knowledge allows us to better understand everyday practices of democracy and how the current backlash resonates with broader exclusionary tendencies and fundamental problems of the Western democracy model. We assume that the problem is not anti-gender movements alone but also the roots they have in the exclusionary features of contemporary European democracies, the way in which they are normatively designed and function. CCINDLE provides for concrete approaches and tools to more effectively fight anti-gender and other anti-democratic forces, support the quality of democracy, and make democracy across Europe more resilient and inclusive. We put these approaches and tools into practice through co-creating actions including student juries, a network of intersectional feminist media across Europe, gender café’s, blogs, and other networking/dissemination activities.

In Europe, and globally, substantial numbers of young people are at risk of social exclusion, and there is therefore a pressing need to develop more knowledge and innovation to create more inclusive and youth-friendly societies. Citizen social science might contribute to these needs, but the actual outcomes of citizen social science and its innovative potential is uncertain. YOUCOUNT will therefore, through cocreative youth citizen social science (Y-CSS) including youths in the age of 15- 29 years as citizen scientists, produce new knowledge of positive drivers for social inclusion of youth at risk of exclusion, and cocreate innovations and policy-making. Moreover, to provide evidence of the actual outcomes of Y-CSS through hands on citizen science activities. The project includes four substudies: 1) Development of a framework for Y-CSS together with a transdisciplinary consortium and multilevel platform of key experts and stakeholders in a European and international setting. 2) Implementation of a multiple case study of Y-CSS projects in nine countries across Europe where over 900 young citizen scientists and nine local living labs will cocreate innovations together. 3) Mixed-methods evaluation of the outcomes and impact of the Y-CSS activities, and a multi-criteria assessment of the costs and benefits of Y-CSS, and 4) Creation of social and scientific impact through widespread scaling up and continuity. These activities will lead to robust knowledge and scientifically reasoned measures to promote Y-CSS and social change. The project will support dissemination and education in Y- CSS, and make synergies with other CS related projects and initiatives, in particularly with citizen social science.