This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research & Innovation programme under Grant Agreement no. 870612. Our website reflects only the authors’ views and the European Union is not liable for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.

Our overarching aim

To enhance and maximise long-term positive impact of the ICT environment on multiple aspects of wellbeing for all children by stimulating resilience through the enhancement of digital skills

Objective 1:
To acquire extensive knowledge and better measurement of digital skills.
Objective 2:
To develop and test an innovative, evidence-based explanatory and foresight model predicting the complex impacts of ICT use and digital skills on children’s cognitive, psychological, physical and social wellbeing.
Objective 3:
To explain the ways in which at-risk children (in terms of mental health, ethnic or cultural origin, SES and gender) can benefit from online opportunities despite their risk factors (material, social, psychological).
Objective 4:
To generate insightful evidence-based recommendations and strategies for key stakeholder groups to promote digital skills and wellbeing.

Our approach

ySKILLS proposes a holistic, child-centric approach to understanding how use of the internet has variable consequences for children’s rights to participation, information, freedom of expression, education, and play, and to protection from harm.

NEWS

This ySKILLS newsletter gives an overview of the findings and activities from the previous months of the ySKILLS project.

ySKILLS webinar:
Youth mental health and internet use

This webinar discusses one of the four in-depth studies of the ySKILLS project, focusing on youth mental health and internet use.

Blog: Key lessons learned using performance tests to measure digital skills

Report on the development of real-life tasks encompassing information navigation and processing, communication and interaction, and content creation and production skills.

Consortium

The ySKILLS consortium includes 16 partners who will actively engage in meeting the objectives of the project. To achieve these objectives, ySKILLS brings together leading international centres for research on media studies, communication sciences, youth research, psychology, pedagogy, law, educational neuroscience and sociology.

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Latest news from our blog

Digital services
As of August 25th, the European Union is tightening its grip on large tech companies through the implementation of the Digital Services Act (DSA), a set of  rules aimed at protecting users of online platforms, with specific focus on the largest online platforms. Interview by Leen […]
Interview by different media concerns
Media literacy has moved from the margins of debate to playing a pivotal role in European media policy over the past decade (Livingstone, 2004; O’Neill, 2010; Van Audenhove et al., 2018). As societies become increasingly dependent on digital technologies, individuals who are less media-literate or less […]
Train DL
Our interviews with education and labour market experts revealed that formal education has a key role to play in teaching and honing digital skills. But here’s the problem: both labour market and education experts denounced the current state of digital skills education in schools. The education […]

Related projects

As part of the Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme, ySKILLS, as well as other related projects has received funding to enhance and maximise long-term positive impact of the ICT environment on multiple aspects of wellbeing for all children. Here are some fellow projects:

CONTACT US
KU Leuven
Coordinator ySKILLS

Parkstraat 45, box 3603
3000 Leuven
Belgium