Research Goals and the ‘Call of the Youth’

There are two research projects/goals associated with the World Youth Forum 2017. The student-participants of the World Youth Forum are expected to participate in each of these projects:

Research Project 1: (Coordinated by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Innovation & Competition) Students participating in the WYF will be split into multi-disciplinary groups to look into the following three questions and make a presentation based on the group’s suggestions at the Ethics in Innovation conference in the form of a ‘Call of the Youth’. Individual contributions of each student will also be recorded via detailed research questionnaires that will be analyzed and published in the conference volume containing contributions by all experts participating in the conference. The three questions that each youth-group will look into are:

  1. how individuals (especially youth) from different cultures, countries and educational background understand the terms ‘ethics’ and ‘innovation’ (e.g. through case studies);
  2. what, in their opinion, constitutes an ‘ethical innovation’ and why; and
  3. how existing laws, policies and practices can/should be modified to promote ethical innovations.

Research Project 2: (Coordinated jointly by researchers at the Technical University of Munich and the Max Planck Institute for Innovation & Competition) Students participating in the WYF will be split into groups and each student will participate in a computerized experiment. The experiment is designed to study how individuals (especially youth of different culture/country groups) respond to various ethical dilemmas. The findings of the study aim to help guide policy makers and corporations to design better and more culturally sensitive institutions. There will be two sessions per individual – one before and one after the WYF for a comparative study.