Generation Progress Make Progress 2015

How to bridge the gap between young citizens and the political institutions built to serve them? How to reconnect Millennials (those aged between 15-34) with politics and party politics? These are some of the questions that FEPS, CAP, AudienceNet and several others US based research institutions discussed at the Make Progress Summit (16th July, Washington DC) in the framework of the Millennial Dialogue project.

We had the chance to count with honorary guests during the summit, like Vice President Biden or the Democrat Senator Elizabeth Warren, who joined the debate on how to tackle the shared sense of lack of engagement between young people and politics and most importantly, how to better engage Millennials with political systems.

The North American results show that Millennials both in Canada and US have a lot of common hobbies and concerns, however, significant divergences were also to be found: the interest in politics among US Millennials is noticeably higher than their northern neighbours. Canadians explain the lack of interest due to the distractions of modern life, whilst the US Millennials emphasise the negative campaign tactics from candidates, polemical discourse and polarising bipartisanship.
 
Read a brief analysis of the North American Millennial results by David Kitching, Director of Social & Political Research, AudienceNet.

Website of the summit

Make Progress 2015- Global Roundtable Agenda

10:00                Welcome, Anne Johnson and Matt Browne

10:15 – 11:00    Landscape Discussion

Participants are invited to prepare 2-3 minutes of comments about their organization, or experience in engaging millennials. Our goal is to establish a landscape of youth engagement organizations and programs. 

11:00 – 12:00    EFPS/Audience Net Research

The European Foundation for Progressive Studies recently conducted research with the UK based firm, Audience Net. With data and analysis from millennials in nine countries, this groundbreaking data will be presented, and participants will be encouraged to ask question0. 

12:00-12:30       Break for Lunch

12:30 – 1:15      Discussions: Issues and Engagement Strategies 

Participants may choose one group discussion for facilitated conversations then report back to the larger group.

§  Identifying major issues facing millennials

§  Youth leadership development pipelines

§  Political participation and voting

1:15 – 1:30         Wrap Up and Next step