Student Parliament

Description

Over a 3-days discussion, students of schools and universities engage as creative parliamentarians with social challenges, to discover the more effective links between science and politics. This process is followed by voting on resolutions. Yearly, around 70 students across Europe exchange their ideas with scientists, philosophers, and researchers from related subject areas, experiencing a democratic process in a simulated parliament. This kind of gathering runs open debates about pressing issues of our time, for instance, the future of the environment, human beings and science.

Target Audience

Teenagers

You can do it with all those groups, but we did it with professionals from different fields like public engagement or the cultural and creative sector.

Benefits

The students get trained and meet experts to know the pressing issues on a determined topic, getting very knowledgeable about a specif theme. They take a standing point that will be presented with argumentation. The try to propose resolutions and defend these resolutions in a parliamentary debate. Afterwards, they hand them over to local and European policymakers for better decision-making, towards the issues that are currently concerning the population.

There is a clear goal to inspire and empower young Europeans to be open-minded, tolerant and active citizens.

Preparations

Send a list of challenging issues to members before the meeting
Organise preparing sessions between the students and the experts, so they get the insights and the current state of the art of the topic
Presenting a variety of questions around the topic
Ask parliamentarians to vote for the most challenging issue
Make a perfect atmosphere for discussing solutions and proposals
Set a schedule that brings the different steps together