PARTICIPA comparative research study now available

The PARTICIPA Comparative Joint Research Study – Needs Mapping for Municipality Officers Working with Youth Councils is now available for download.

The study brings together research from Croatia, Cyprus, Italy and Romania, combining national desk research with focus groups involving 35 municipality officers and local government representatives. It examines how youth councils function in different national contexts, the actual role of municipality officers, the main barriers to meaningful youth participation, and the skills and support officers need in their everyday work.

Despite different legal and institutional frameworks, several common patterns emerged across all four countries:

  • Municipality officers do much more than administration. In practice, they often act as facilitators, mentors, mediators and connectors between young people and local authorities, even though these roles are rarely formally recognised or supported.
  • Systematic training is largely missing. Officers often rely on personal experience and motivation, while structured learning opportunities in youth participation, facilitation, mentoring and youth work remain limited.
  • Youth councils mostly remain consultative bodies, with their actual influence depending strongly on institutional openness, political support and the quality of cooperation with local authorities.
  • Limited staff time, resources and institutional support affect the continuity and quality of youth participation, while sustaining young people’s motivation and ownership is a challenge across contexts.
  • Digital tools are widely used, but mostly for communication and coordination. Their potential for consultations, co-creation, facilitation and broader participation is still underused.

These findings provided the evidence base for the development of the PARTICIPA MOOC for municipality officers, helping shape its learning priorities, practical tools and real-life examples. The research points to a clear need for learning that is practical, modular and directly applicable to everyday work with youth councils, rather than focused mainly on theory.

The full Comparative Joint Research Study is available for download below.