The methodology for this research project is engagement-led, combining dance practice-as-research and social science methods. The project brings together a team of dance and social science researchers with 80 youth dancers and their facilitators from a diverse range of youth groups in Northern Ireland and Ireland working across three dance genres: ballet, contemporary, and street dance.

The project explores two research themes and questions:

(a) Youth Dance as Shared Culture: How do dancers and their facilitators experience and value youth dance? What supports/challenges engagement?

(b) Shared Island Capacity Building: What impacts youth dance development on the island? What aspects of cooperation should be prioritised for future action and why? What might enable or hinder shared approaches? How might cooperation reach beyond supporting youth dance?

The project is accomplished across three work packages that progress sequentially across Work Packages 1 and 2, from project recruitment, training, and supporting research (Work package 1), to the mixed methods approach with youth dancers (work package 2). Work Package 3 involves public engagement and dissemination outputs and feedback events that span the entire project. The project research questions inform all work package activities.

Work Package 1: Recruitment, Training, and Research

Work Package 1 runs from January to May 2023 and includes the following key objectives/tasks:

(i) Recruitment of PD Fellow and Research Assistant: The project team will recruit a PD Fellow with expertise in social science research, a specialism in youth policy studies, and website management experience. A Research Assistant with expertise in youth dance and screen dance practice and film editing will also be recruited to support the lead researchers.

(ii) Team Training and Development of Project Safeguarding Policy: The project team will undertake criminal records and Garda vetting and child protection training to ensure youth safeguarding across the project. A youth safeguarding policy will be written. The project team is responsible for this task, and completion is expected in May 2022.

(iii) Ethics Approval from UCD: The project team will obtain ethics approval from UCD. Durrer is responsible for this task, and completion is expected in May 2023.

(iv) Scoping Review of Youth Dance Policy: The project team will conduct a scoping review of existing publications and data on youth dance and youth arts policy in an Irish and Northern Irish context. An audit/mapping of youth dance groups on the island will also be conducted. McGrath and QUB PD Fellow are responsible for this task, and completion is expected in May 2023.

(v) Website Building and Launch: The project team will build and launch a website to provide information about the project and its progress. The website will be updated throughout the project. The QUB PD Fellow is responsible for this task, and completion is expected in May 2023.

Work Package 2: Youth Dance as Shared Island Culture

Work Package 2 runs from May to December 2023 and includes the following key objectives/tasks:

(i) Youth Dance Workshops: Youth dance participants from eight youth dance groups (80 total) from Northern Ireland and Ireland will take part in individual project workshops led by the UCD RA. These dance workshops will introduce the project themes, research questions, and methodology to the youth dancers and provide them with basic digital video and audio recording training to support Phase 2.

(ii) Interviews with Youth Dance Facilitators: QUB PD Fellow will conduct interviews with the youth dance facilitators (up to 16) of each group to gather primary data about their activities. Separately to the workshops, up to 10 managers in six support bodies will also be interviewed for further infrastructural context. All workshops/interview

Work Package 3:

Dissemination and Feedback (January 2023 – June 2023): This work package involves public engagement and dissemination outputs and feedback events that span the entire project. The project research questions inform all work package activities. In this work package, the project team will analyse and synthesize the data collected from Work Package 2. They will create dissemination outputs, including academic publications, digital media content, and a public exhibition of youth dance video/film. Feedback events will be held with youth dancers and their facilitators to ensure that their experiences and opinions are incorporated into the final project outputs. The website will also be updated with the dissemination outputs and feedback events.