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Introducing EYEN

EYEN is the brand-new European Youth Energy Network being built-up since 2020 by passionate volunteers from all across Europe. Our mission is to place youth at the heart of the European energy transition, by empowering energy-focused youth organisations, connecting them with each other and with key actors in the energy sector, and sharing knowledge on European and national levels. We help youth to participate in high-level debates and ministerial meetings, spread events and other opportunities. We have launched our first project “OpenPolicy Europe”, the digital hub for citizens to understand, discover and engage in policymaking at European and national levels.

Why we do what we do

We are terribly concerned by the lack of formal youth engagement in the European energy transition. And we also know that we could do so much better on cooperating, communicating and creating visibility between energy-focused youth organisations as well as creating understanding of institutions and processes if we just got organised. As youth we are key to finding the solutions we need to tackle the climate crisis and implement rapid energy transition. Why? Because of our innovative mindset, knowledge of social interactions and institutions as well as our communication skills. All our team members are young professionals with experience in energy-related fields, and many more youth in our network are ready to contribute solutions for the energy transition.

The story of a unique network

The story of EYEN starts at the 10th Clean Energy Ministerial 4th Mission Innovation Youth Forum in 2019, where EYEN co-founders Luciana Miu (RO), Miguel Mósca (PT) & Federico Barbieri (IT) participated as youth delegates.

They realised that not only was youth not participating enough in high-level debates and ministerial meetings, but also that they could do something about it! If only there was an organisation that acted as a catalyst for youth engagement, then this organisation would work as a network of networks! This is how EYEN was born, the European network of energy-focused youth organisations from across Europe.

EYEN has already started strong with multiple activities: we were invited by DG CLIMA to co-create the European Climate Pact Youth Engagement Strategy after successfully organising the Youth Shaping the Climate Pact event and developing a policy paper on “Gaps and ideas for youth engagement” sent to the European Commission. We also organised a side event at the global Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM12/MI6), became part of the Youth Sustainable Energy Hub, successfully launched the organisation through an official event and are now (co-)organising events as part of the EU Sustainable Energy Week as well as the All4Climate initiative ahead of Pre-COP & COP26 climate action summits!

We have big plans for coordinating youth efforts and reshaping youth engagement, empowering individuals and organisations, disseminating opportunities and best practices, connecting organisations as well as creating the preconditions for youth to act. This we will achieve through activities such as policy advocacy, (co-)organisation of training and youth events, thematic WGs on energy technologies and providing support for the establishment of new youth organisations.

Where we stand today

At this moment, we are over 20 volunteers from across Europe making EYEN a reality and are grateful for all the support we received from all our former collaborators, so go and meet the humans behind EYEN. EYEN has been working closely with DG ENER of the European Commission and the UN Major Group for Children and Youth (UNMGCY) via the SDG7 Youth Constituency, the formal engagement mechanism for young people in UN and UN-related processes focused on energy topics. We could also count on the support of our founding partners and members Student Energy, YES Europe, YES-DC, Planeta and ELIES and have started exciting activities with more organisations!