COORDINATE · COhort cOmmunity Research and Development Infrastructure Network for Access Throughout Europe

The aspiration to secure the wellbeing of children and young people is explicit in Grand Challenges such as the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. The EU has similarly highlighted the importance of securing the future of children and young people. It has become accepted that inequalities must be thought of longitudinally and not regarded as static events unrelated to prior events and future likelihoods. Policy makers must ensure that they base their policy interventions and adjustments on the best evidence available and this must include, inter alia, cohort survey data. COORDINATE will begin to fill the serious and extensive gaps in the availability of robust and suitable data for the monitoring and evaluation of child wellbeing in Europe. The COORDINATE project brings together 22 partners from 14 countries who will initiate the community of researchers and organisations that will drive forwards the coordinated development of comparative birth cohort panel survey research in Europe. COORDINATE will: • Facilitate improved access to international birth cohort panel and cross-sectional survey data • Extend the consortium network to maximise EU and European coverage for a future Europe wide accelerated birth cohort survey • Undertake joint research in the form of a large-scale cohort pilot survey using a harmonised instrument and research design in key European countries The infrastructural community initiated by COORDINATE will benefit from enhanced access to current infrastructural data platforms, and will promote the harmonisation of and improve access to international cohort panel survey data in the study of children as they grow up. COORDINATE continues the research initiated in the FP7 Measuring Youth Well Being project (GA613368) and the H2020 European Cohort Development Project (GA777449) to prepare the next phases of Europe’s first cross-national accelerated birth cohort survey: EuroCohort - Growing Up in Digital Europe (GUIDE).