Y & R publishes its 2025 Annual Report

Last year marked another outstanding year for the Young and Resilient Research Centre, which is reflected in the publication of our 2025 Annual Report.

In 2025, Y&R made a significant contribution to key youth-related issues such as the advancement of intergenerational climate justice. We co-hosted large-scale public events centering young people in climate debates: the Australia Pacific Youth Climate Dialogue (with UNICEF Australia and the ANU) which welcomed 50 youth delegates from Australia and the Pacific to crystallise a youth climate action agenda in the leadup to COP31; a Climate Action Week event (with PHIVE Parramatta and Powerhouse Museum); and the Preparing for Hotter Futures workshop (with ANU). We published articles in The Conversation and academic journals, edited a special issue on youth studies in Australia and the climate crisis, and launched The Silent Majority podcast which explores ways to move forward in times of crisis. We also continued the development of an implementation toolkit for our child-centred indicators for climate change, which will be rolled out in 2026.

In addition to this, 2025 was a pivotal year in which concerns about children’s online safety reached fever pitch in both Australia and around the world. Y&R played a critical role in shaping public discourse on this issue, highlighting the importance of evidence-based research and being a voice to promote children's rights at time when the political imperative to act could potentially lead to hasty policy decisions and less than ideal outcomes for the people they are designed to help – children and young people.

In 2025, we worked with, 984 children and young people on 11 projects. Since its inception Y&R has engaged more than 4,500 children and young people from over 80 countries around the world in participatory workshops to explore their online experiences. We also secured over $1.2 million dollars in external research income.

Other key highlights from the year include:

• Releasing 52 publications (up from 37 publications in 2024).

• Collaborating with 27 new partners in 15 countries, including Australia, Bangladesh, Brazil, Chad, India, Indonesia, Lebanon, Nepal, Philippines, Poland, Rwanda, Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka and Venezuela.

• Launching 4 new projects, completing 5 existing projects and managing 21 ongoing projects.

• Y&R’s Co-Directors Professor Amanda Third and Professor Philippa Collin further cemented their reputations as leading, world experts with respect to children and young peoples’ experiences of the digital world – providing advice to governments and tech companies and media outlets alike.

• In 2025, Y&R researchers used youth-centred and distributed data generation methods to co-design three national child online safety taskforces advising governments in Indonesia, Lebanon and Malawi, and our Co-Directors and members also served on advisory boards for major technology companies (Meta, Google, Snap, Microsoft) and Prof Amanda Third engaged with the Australian Federal Government on social media age restrictions.

• During the 2025 Federal election, Prof Philippa Collin spoke with BBC Worldwide about the significance of Gen Z and Millennials outnumbering Baby Boomers and Gen Xers at the ballot box for the first time, while later in the year, Prof Amanda Third provided expert commentary to BBC Worldwide when the Australian government’s under 16s social media age restrictions made world headlines when it came into effect on December 10, 2025. BBC Worldwide has an audience reach of 115 million in over 200 countries and territories.

Watch this space for what lies ahead in 2026 and congratulations to everyone who contributed to these impressive results.

Download the 2025 Annual Report.