From 15 to 17 June 2026, the We-ID Consortium convened in Stockholm, Sweden, for the project’s midterm meeting and Stakeholder Conference. Hosted by the Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS), one of the consortium members, the three days combined an internal review of research progress with field visits and a public conference bringing together researchers, practitioners and young people from across the Baltic Sea region.
Reviewing progress across the case studies
The internal meeting, held at the CBSS Secretariat, opened with a welcome from Gustav Lindström, CBSS Director-General, and Katarzyna Barcikowska, Chair of the CBSS Committee of Senior Officials, followed by the opening of the conference by Prof. Dr. Claudia Neu, We-ID’s project lead at the University of Göttingen. Partners then presented the latest findings from the field research in Lithuania, Croatia, Bulgaria and Scotland, followed by a joint discussion of what these findings mean for the project going forward:
- Field research depends heavily on gatekeepers who can open access to migrant communities, a recurring methodological challenge across the case studies, especially across the Croatian field research sites.
- Language is emerging as the key factor shaping integration and belonging, particularly in light of the closure of Russian-language schools in Lithuania.
- Partners flagged the importance of guarding against a securitisation bias when researching migration, keeping the framing of the project’s outputs measured and evidence-led.
- The Brexit narrative served as a discussion point, prompting partners to examine the drivers behind it and the rising immigration figures post-Brexit.
The day closed with dinner at Biblioteket Live in Södermalm.
Field visits: learning from Stockholm’s youth and cultural organisations
On the second day, the consortium visited two organisations working directly with young people and migrant communities in Stockholm.
Fryshuset
- Fryshuset was founded in 1984 by Anders Carlberg, who converted a disused cold storage building, commissioned originally for the YMCA of Southern Stockholm, into a basketball hall and music studios. The name Fryshuset, Swedish for “the freezing house”, stuck.
- Today the organisation runs around 70 programmes and schools across four areas: role models and social work, youth culture, education, and work and entrepreneurship, with venues in eight Swedish cities and international partners including the United Nations and the European Commission.
- The visit centred on Fryshuset Gymnasium, where the curriculum pairs natural and social sciences with a creative or sporting specialism chosen by each pupil. The school places particular weight on young people taking responsibility for themselves and their community, shaping their surroundings and launching projects of their own.
- Storytelling featured strongly in the visit, including a session on interreligious dialogue, where relationship hosts act as community connectors and role models, building leadership skills among young participants. A recurring theme was storytelling as a way of meeting people through shared passions, rather than through difference.
- A memorial to Fryshuset’s founder, Anders Carlberg (1943 to 2013), greets visitors on site. Before turning to youth work, he had been a prominent figure on the Swedish political left and later a Social Democrat; his social work with Fryshuset was recognised in 2000 with H. M. The King’s Medal. He is remembered for his conviction that young people, given the right context and the right people around them, can grow and move forward, a belief that still underpins the organisation’s work today and lives on through the Anders Carlberg Memorial Prize, awarded annually since 2016.
- Fryshuset now describes itself as Sweden’s largest youth organisation, meeting young people for around 325,000 hours every month across its venues, built on the idea of enabling young people to change the world through their passions.
One of Carlberg’s own lines, still displayed at Fryshuset, sums up the approach:
“Don’t hit them in the face, hit them with wonder.” – Anders Carlberg, founder of Fryshuset
Mångkulturellt Centrum (Multicultural Centre)
- Mångkulturellt centrum (MKC) is a municipal foundation based in Norsborg that has worked since 1987 towards a Sweden in which diversity is reflected in the national self-image and migration is recognised as a natural part of the country’s cultural heritage.
- The team visited a venue that combines a museum, research archive and lively meeting point in one, hosting a changing programme of art and history exhibitions on migration, identity and social change.
- The visit included a presentation by René Leon-Rosales on his use of photo elicitation methods in field research. Discussions centred on sport as a means for young people in disadvantaged areas to refuse to be diminished by their circumstances.
- Partners also discussed the ethnicisation of social problems and securitisation as a further dimension shaping public debate on migration, echoing the caution raised the day before.
- The presentation closed with a set of takeaways on the intersection of youth, migration and democracy: democratic participation is shaped by unequal social conditions rather than a lack of interest, socioeconomic inequality and territorial stigma create real barriers to engagement, and migration background intersects with class, place, age and language rather than acting alone. Young people are not disengaged, they participate differently, often through community organising, sports clubs, local associations and peer networks that traditional measures of participation tend to overlook.
- Among the recommendations put forward: provide accessible information on party policies in plain Swedish and relevant native languages, prioritise direct, dialogue-based communication over confrontational political debate and mass communication, and increase face-to-face interaction between politicians and residents through local outreach and community events.
- A quieter detail stayed with the group on the way out. The centre’s steps carry four questions engraved into the stone: Vad fick du? (What did you receive?), Vad gav du? (What did you give?), Vad fann du? (What did you find?) and Vad förlorade du? (What did you lose?), a fitting set of questions for a centre dedicated to migration and belonging.
Stakeholder Conference: panel discussion and reception
The afternoon brought the We-ID Stakeholder Conference, held together with the Baltic Sea Region Youth Forum, with a panel discussion on youth and social cohesion in contexts of migration, identity and belonging, followed by a reception. The panel drew on themes of sport, democratic participation, youth and trust building, all of which directly connect to the We-ID project themes.
The panel brought together:
- Aza Cheragwandi – Municipal Commissioner (Kommunalråd) and Chair of the Committee for Social Affairs, Huddinge Municipality
- Caroline Hornstein Tomić – Senior Researcher at the Institute of Social Sciences Ivo Pilar, Zagreb
- Tony Mickelsson Blomqvist – Senior Lecturer, School of Police Studies at Södertörn University
- Nikola Lewicka – Migration Officer of the Baltic Sea Region Youth Forum (BSRYF)
The discussion was moderated by Öndercan Muti, Project Coordinator at Population Europe, part of the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research.
One exchange from the panel stayed with the team. Aza Cheragwandi put it this way:
“A welcoming guest mentality as part of migration does not just mean serving good food and warmly welcoming migrants. This will not make guests feel included or encouraged to participate. We need to rearrange the living room together.”
Consortium work session and looking ahead
The third day was dedicated to an internal work session. The sister project MAGnituDe presented its work, which looks at how the mass displacement caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is reshaping European democracy, and how everyday encounters between displaced people, other migrant groups and host communities can be used to strengthen democratic participation and counter polarisation. The team then reflected together on the field research experiences and the feedback gathered during the panel discussion.
Moving forward
The Stockholm meeting brought research and practice into the same room, from the case study presentations through to the field visits and the panel’s call to rearrange that room together. Our thanks go to the CBSS for their hospitality and to everyone who joined the Stakeholder Conference and Baltic Sea Region Youth Forum for such an engaged set of discussions.
For more information about the We-ID project, visit the project website or contact the consortium lead at the University of Göttingen.
