Youth STEM Matters Year In Review 2023
2023 was a year of renewal in strategy development, and experimenting & learning for Youth STEM Matters. We hosted our biggest and most impactful Youth STEM Matters Research Conference yet, ran new team-wide projects, and took a collaborative approach towards making key decisions around the journal’s priorities.
Developing a Renewed Journal Strategy
A key focus of 2023 was the development of a renewed journal mission, vision and objectives. In a process led by the Executive Team, the entire Youth STEM Matters Team had the opportunity to share their views on the change we as a journal want to make in the world, and we collaboratively refined our ‘north star’ in the form of our renewed vision, mission and objectives…
Vision: A world where the research, ideas, innovations, and voices of youth play an integral role in driving STEM solutions for a sustainable world.
Mission: We're on a mission to create an inclusive, impactful and youth-led platform for youth globally to share their STEM research, ideas, innovations, and voices to tackle the world's biggest challenges.
Objectives:
Youth Voice in STEM Research: Enable young people to become key stakeholders and active contributors in the advancement of scientific research & communication for a more sustainable world
Tackling Global Challenges: Increase the impact of young people’s STEM-based solutions and research for the advancement of the UN SDGs
Equity & Inclusion: Drive a more equitable and inclusive world, STEM sector and scientific publishing ecosystem
A Community of Youth Making Change in STEM Research: Foster a community of young people around the world who work together to inspire, activate and empower other youth as STEM researchers, innovators & science communicators.
Through this process, our voices were central to determining Youth STEM 2030’s Vision, Mission & Objectives.
Objective and Key Results (OKRs):
To realise our vision, we implemented Objective and Key Results, or OKRs, as a way for us to define our main objectives and track our progress towards them. Our first set of goals were chosen by the whole team in July during our Journal Development Day, which were then discussed and refined by the Executive Team and then subsequently run from July to October. These goals were based on three major objectives - increasing publishing, improving our internal communications and growing our impact - and were broken down into 34 key results which each had different team members responsible. While we didn’t achieve every key result, we made significant progress, and also realised the power of focus; lessons which were implemented in our second OKRs cycle which is currently ongoing.
2023 Youth STEM Matters Research Conference
Our Fourth Youth STEM Matters Research Conference took place back in July, and was organised entirely by Alice, Anika, Luis, Mahdia, Mojolaoluwa and Shahed, who are members of the Youth STEM Matters Team. This year’s Research Conference brought together a record 733 youth from all over the world to showcase and celebrate the difference young people were making through STEM research. The conference was packed with skill workshops, inspiring talks and a showcase of 24 STEM-based projects by young people across the world. Workshops included “Share Your Voice With Science Communication”, enabling the participants to take their first steps towards writing a SciComm article, “Starting a STEM Research Project”, enabling participants to take their first steps towards doing a STEM-based research project, giving them the tangible skills and resources which will help them succeed, and lastly “Taking Your STEM Research Further”, designed for participants who had already done some sort of STEM-based project, and were wanting to take it further, such as by publishing it with Youth STEM Matters. Prizes were awarded, both for our most engaged attendees and recognising the contributions of our volunteers in the 2023 Youth STEM Matters Volunteer Awards. Following the conference, the recordings of each talk were edited and transcribed in our Transcribe-a-thon project, improving the accessibility and creating lasting impact for the Research Conference. Our 2023 Research Conference Impact Report demonstrates that the Research Conference was a truly impactful event.
Journal Development Days
Throughout the year, we hosted Journal Development Days, which bring together the entire Youth STEM Matters Team creating an opportunity for everyone to connect with each other, reflect on the journal and identify its achievements and areas of improvement.
In our March Journal Development Day, we focussed on developing our renewed journal mission, vision and objectives through a range of activities exploring and reflecting on what Youth STEM Matters means to every team member. This was done practically by scrapbooking, emotionally by writing a letter from the future, mentally by writing a letter to the UN and spiritually by meditating on passion for change. We also brainstormed on how we could improve on realising the journal's mission of being an inclusive, impactful and youth-led platform for youth globally to share their STEM research, ideas, innovations, and voices to tackle the world's biggest challenges.
Later in the year, our second Journal Development Day of 2023 gave every member of the Youth STEM Matters Team a voice in the development of our first set of objectives and key results (OKRs). This was achieved through interactive brainstorming sessions and lots of collaboration in breakout rooms. We also discussed how to promote transparency by increasing communication and how to optimise the peer-review and publication processes in order to publish a larger number of articles each month.
New Projects
In addition to the regular day-to-day running of the journal and publication process, most of our team also get involved in additional projects - these provide a way to get to know other people in the team and work on something new. Here’s some of the highlights from our 2023 team-wide projects…
Nucleus: Nucleus is a new volunteer and project tracker that was developed by Exec Team member Josh to assist with keeping track of everything going on within Youth STEM Matters. It was launched mid-way through the year, with everyone in the team filling in their own profile with a bit about them and their scientific interests. This has allowed editors to better assign articles to reviewers and has provided a way for all the past and current Youth STEM Matters projects to be listed in one place.
STEM Explorers Chronicles: Led by Victor, this project enabled members of the Youth STEM Matters Team to write Experience articles, which included articles covering coding, experiments, robotics or any STEM adventure which could inspire others to explore the world of science, technology, engineering, and maths.
New Specialisms: We experimented with some new roles in the team, including specialisms of Abstract Writers, Article Ideas Curators, Interview Organisers, and Community Builders.
Graduations From Youth STEM Matters
Sadly we have a few volunteers each year whose time as part of the team comes to an end as they move onto the next chapter of their lives. A huge thank you to the following members who graduated this year for your contribution to our mission: Anchita Shetty, Connie Siu M.H., Alvina Mishra, Kavvisha Shroff, Esther Popoola, Adriane Thompson, Sampada Shah, Nada Elmoussa, Elinor Baker, Anna Zhang, Rutendo Kahari, Yordanose Tefferi, Thu Nguyen Anh, Nicole Mulure, Dimple Amitha Garuadapuri, Victor Olufemi, Anika Dugal, Abdul Karim Sesay, Alys Jiménez and Magali Lucana.
