Youth reporting as an instrument of knowledge production

European societies are reshaping and young generations in particular face the subsequent economic and social changes. The current economic crisis exacerbates the risk of youth poverty, aggravates social exclusion, and threatens the overall integration and participation of young people (Willems, Heinen & Meyers, 2012).
Policymakers as well as stakeholders of the practical field have to find answers and solutions to tackle these challenges. They need reliable knowledge and systematic information to develop appropriate and effective measures. Social reporting generating “information on social structures and processes and on preconditions and consequences of social policy, regularly, in time, systematically, and autonomously” (Zapf, 1977, p.11) can provide an important evidence base for the decision-making process in policy and praxis.
Our contribution starts with the argument that in modern knowledge societies, the autonomy of science has decreased and has become more open to politics and praxis. This becomes obvious by an increasing importance of co-production and participation in science and research (Nowotny, 2001; Weingart, 1997).
Using the first Luxembourgish youth report as an example, we outline its underlying innovative concept of participatory social reporting. The report’s main characteristic is the systematic involvement of experts from the fields of policy, practice and research throughout the entire period of reporting. It aims to open the research process to experts and to integrate their professional knowledge (Willems et al., 2010).
The presented concept of youth reporting is not an autonomous and exclusive process reserved to researchers. It is rather a “hybrid panel” (Lüders, 2006) where evidence is negotiated in a co-productive process between researchers and experts. Thus, the concept is characterised by its open, participatory and dialogue approach.
We show how this concept was realised in the different phases and how it contributes to the reporting process: (1) In a first phase to explore socially relevant topics and issues and to define an agenda, (2) in a second phase to generate evidence and (3) in a final phase to define measures and actions for policymakers.