The EARLY Project consortium met in person on 21–22 November in Craiova, Romania. Partners from across Europe attended the meeting to advance research and practical action on youth mental health. Elysie Nguyen, Community Engagement and Project Officer, and Erik Van der Eycken, EU Research Project Manager, represented our organisation. They joined discussions on how to evaluate, identify and reduce the factors that contribute to mental health conditions in young people. As a result, the meeting helped shape the next steps of the project.
Strengthening Scientific Direction
Partners reviewed progress across all work packages, clarified the scientific priorities and planned the work for the coming months. The group stressed the importance of examining the biological, social, environmental and structural influences that shape youth mental health. With 19 partners from 14 countries, ensuring a consistent and coordinated approach across the consortium is essential, and the meeting helped reinforce this shared direction.
A key contribution from GAMIAN-Europe throughout the project has been pushing the consortium to consider the lived experience perspective in each phase of the work, not as an add-on, but as a core part of the project’s scientific and ethical integrity. This includes ensuring that findings identified by experts, researchers and professionals (such as exposure prevalence or perceived needs) are not simply accepted as complete until they are validated with young people themselves.
Building Robust Evidence on Youth Mental Health
The EARLY Project aims to produce strong, representative and actionable data on youth mental health in Europe. One major component focuses on developing a detailed exposure matrix to map the multiple determinants linked to mental health outcomes.
In parallel, work is ongoing to understand how young people perceive mental health, what barriers they face, and what supports they consider meaningful. GAMIAN-Europe has consistently advocated for validation surveys and focus groups with young people to test the project’s assumptions, identify blind spots and ensure that any proposed intervention reflects the lived reality of those it is meant to serve.
Consulting people with lived experience is not just beneficial but crucial. Without their direct input, research risks reinforcing assumptions, overlooking structural or social barriers, or designing interventions that work in theory but fail in practice. By building these mechanisms into the project, EARLY becomes more accurate, more representative and ultimately more useful to decision-makers.
Partners are also analysing national and international datasets to identify early warning signs, trends, risks and protective factors linked to non-communicable diseases, with a strong focus on youth mental health.
Ensuring Ethics, Data Security and System Preparedness
The project places strong emphasis on ethics and legal compliance. Partners follow strict data governance rules, robust data protection procedures and secure data management across both EU and non-EU countries. At the same time, the project is mapping the preparedness of different health and social systems to implement youth mental health interventions. This includes reviewing current services, identifying gaps and understanding where young people fall through the cracks.
Moving Forward
The meeting in Craiova marked an important milestone for the EARLY Project. It strengthened collaboration across the consortium and reinforced a shared commitment to improving mental health outcomes for young people across Europe. Ultimately, the project aims to build a strong evidence base that supports better mental health outcomes for young people. With lived experience involvement clearly embedded and scientific cooperation strengthened, the consortium is well-positioned to deliver meaningful, long-lasting impact.
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