Hangout is a European project focused on understanding the barriers and needs of adolescents within the framework of the 15-minute city urban model. Its objective is to place the experiences and perspectives of young people between the ages of 14 and 18 at the center of urban mobility planning, contributing to the development of more accessible, inclusive, and sustainable cities.
Funded under the Driving Urban Transitions Partnership (DUT), HANGOUT is coordinated by the Instituto Superior Técnico of Lisbon (Portugal). The consortium also brings together the Technical University of Denmark, DTU (Denmark), the Delft University of Technology, TU Delft (Netherlands), the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, UAB (Spain), the Oslo Metropolitan University, OsloMet (Norway), the Câmara Municipal de Lisboa (Portugal), and the municipality of Holbæk (Denmark). More information about its objectives and activities can be found on the project website.
The project held its kick-off meeting in Lisbon in May. During this first meeting of the consortium, Jaime Orrego, a researcher from GEMOTT at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, participated alongside representatives from the other partner institutions. During the session, the general strategy for the work packages was outlined and the schedule for research tasks was agreed upon. Within this framework, Jaime presented the planning for Work Package 3 (WP3), led by GEMOTT and focused on institutional mapping and the analysis of adolescent mobility policies based on three pillars: governance and policies, urban environment, and perception and awareness.
Currently, the GEMOTT team is already working at full capacity on the execution of WP3. To this end, Martín Couto, a doctoral student in Sociology, joined the team in September and will support the development of this block over the coming months.
In this phase, GEMOTT is collecting the institutional documentation that will be analyzed jointly by the project partners. Likewise, Cornellà de Llobregat is participating as an associate municipality and will constitute one of the project’s case studies, where primary data collection will be carried out.
Over the coming weeks, interviews, focus groups, and surveys with adolescents in the municipality are scheduled to begin in order to gather their direct experiences and contributions regarding mobility and urban life.
By the end of the year, the first results of the analysis are expected to be available, which will allow for an assessment of the extent to which urban planning agencies and policies take adolescent mobility into account, as well as the identification of opportunities for improvement in this field.
