Youth4Sea: putting young people at the centre of territorial cooperation
26/05/2026
Youth4Sea concluded, but its message is meant to continue far beyond the event itself. Our Interreg Italy-Croatia Annual Event 2026 brought together some 200 people, from younger generations to project beneficiaries, from institutional representatives to Programme representatives, to reflect collectively on youth engagement.
Throughout the day, discussions moved from concrete project experiences to broader reflections on the future post-2027 Interreg framework and a live graphic recording accompanied discussions and activities, visually capturing key reflections, ideas and messages emerging from the sessions.
What emerged clearly is that youth engagement cannot remain an isolated exercise or a one-off initiative. It requires continuity, trust, participation and real opportunities for young people to contribute meaningfully to cooperation processes. From the Project Fair to the World Café sessions, from project testimonies to institutional discussions, Youth4Sea reinforced a shared perspective: the future of cooperation must be built together, across borders and across generations.
A strong contribution came from the projects involved throughout the event with different roles, including speakers, Working Table facilitators and exhibitors. The “Young Voices” talk show featured experiences and reflections from DEMY-Coop, MONI.CA, AcquaGuard, Ecofoodcycle and Wastereduce. Youth engagement was also showcased through the Project Fair, where projects including REEL, MAPA, UNDERSEA, ADRINCLUSIVE, ARCHAEODIGIT and STRENGTH presented activities and approaches developed with and for young people. In particular, REEL emerged as the project participants would have most liked to have been involved in.
One of the strongest messages emerging from the event was that for young people “it is not enough to open the doors: they also need to be able to find them”. In this context, participants underlined the important role of youth associations and intermediary organisations in helping bridge the gap between institutions and younger generations, making participation more accessible, understandable and concrete.
With Youth4Sea, the Programme also wanted to communicate a clear message: the doors are open. Youth are not only recognised as a target group within the Programme framework, but are increasingly included through dedicated actions and long-term initiatives. Over the years, the Programme has supported and promoted youth involvement through initiatives such as the Italy-Croatia ASOC civic monitoring project, its contribution to Interreg Volunteer Youth (IVY) with seven volunteers hosted so far within the Joint Secretariat and Managing Authority, dedicated selection criteria rewarding projects addressing youth-related topics, and the Youth Session organised during the “Paths that Last” conference co-organised by the Mediterranean Multi-Programme Mechanism in Split in 2025.
In this perspective, Youth4Sea represented both a culmination and a new starting point: an opportunity to showcase how the Programme and its funded projects have already been working with and for young people, while also reflecting collectively on how to improve youth engagement in the future, especially during the afternoon Working Tables.
These parallel table provided a space for structured exchange, where discussions were balanced and engaging also thanks to the facilitators who contributed. They were opened each with presentations of best practices from three Interreg Italy-Croatia projects - CAMPUS, FISHNOWASTE and WASTREDUCE -, the EUSAIR Youth Council, BioTourS 2.0 (Interreg IPA South Adriatic project), Storytellers of Beauty and Youth Forum of Veneto’s UNESCO Sites (ERDF project) and, especially in Working Table 6 dedicated to Programmes, from Interreg Italy-France Maritime & Interreg North Periphery and Arctic, and Interreg NEXT MED Programmes.
The contributions collected during these parallel sessions shaped the Youth Vision Board, which is available here, together with the overal graphic recording of the day: https://www.italy-croatia.eu/en/youth-engagement-initiatives
Finally, a key point strongly highlighted by several speakers throughout the day was the need to avoid “youth-washing”: involving young people symbolically without ensuring real participation and influence. The Interreg Italy-Croatia Programme fully shares this approach and will continue working on the inputs collected during Youth4Sea to strengthen the path already underway.
