Responsible and active citizenship nurtured through multi-dimensional understanding of contentious development issues is the requisite of responsible leadership.

The Youth Center for Research (YCR) is an aspiring youth-led think tank based in Pakistan. It was established to encourage and engage youth in research, dialogue, policy analysis and advice on a range of socio-economic and political issues. The center is a response to the present demographic makeup of the country which is overly dominated by the youth. This domination needs urgent translation into effective voice to partake in the development process essential to ensure countries’ socio-economic and political take-off.

To effectively achieve this overarching objective, the center organizes numerous conferences, discussion forums, meetings, dialogues and seminars to promote joint deliberation of youth and experts to enable understanding and cooperation on issues and topics of consequence. The center also aims to partner with academia, national and international organizations, various institutions and industrial market to bridge the gap between knowledge and policy and enable youth spearhead sustainable development.

We aim to add substance to youth advocacy by developing youth’s knowledge base around issues of national and global significance. By being informed, young people will be in a better position to hold societal relevance for civic and political participation and leadership in policy discourse in national and global institutional and power apparatus.

Youth represents almost sixteen percent of the global population. This percentage varies across regions constituting more than sixty percent for Africa and thirty percent for South Asia. Representing a noticeable portion of population across nationalities, this age group has a direct stake in national and global issues which translate into development challenges.  These issues not only affect the economies, but they also adversely impact youth development at large.

Common wealth secretariat came up with Youth Development Index measuring critical youth development in five domains: education, health, employment, civic participation and political participation. These aspects also underpin youth empowerment.

We believe effective civic or political participation by the youth depends on their sound understanding of issues around us. This sound understanding needs to be built through research and discussion with the experts to gain deep insights into issues before an action or a change is strived for.

With this noble intention, the foundations of YCR were laid down in the year 2019. In the span of a year it has spread its network into academia, advised government on policy matter and internationally received recognition from the Stanford University through AMENDS programme 2020.