EUMADI: European Mapping of Digital Mission and Youth Formation in the Catholic Church
Who is shaping young people’s faith formation today? This is the central question behind EUMADI. It is a European research project of the Blanquerna Observatory on Media, Religion and Culture (Ramon Llull University), supported by Porticus.
EUMADI identifies the main actors of the Catholic Church involved in digital mission and youth formation in Europe. It focuses on initiatives promoted by dioceses, episcopal conferences, religious congregations and Catholic universities. Its aim is to understand how the Church supports, trains and accompanies young people in digital environments.
Objectives
- Identify key Catholic actors involved in digital mission across Europe.
- Discover iniciatives focused on youth fomration accompaniment.
- Map the connections between actors, initiatives and countries.
- Provide a comprehensive overview to support future research and decision-making.
Participating Countries
The project analyses 17 European countries: Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Ukraine and the United Kingdom.
Methodology
The research is organised into two phases:
- Actor identification. As many relevant Catholic actors as possible have been identified and documented in each country.
- Initiative identification. The research team has reviewed each actor to detect specific youth formation and accompaniment initiatives.
The process followed four steps: initial research, database creation, individual review of each actor, and data classification for the European mapping.
This work is complemented by interviews and snowball sampling. Interviews help us better unterstand the initiatives, and existing contacts recommend other relevant people and organisations. This reveals actors and projects that had not emerged in the initial research.
Interactive map
The results will be presented through an interactive European map, offering a visual overview of the actors and initiatives identified across the participating countries.
Preliminary results
- A comprehensive mapping approach: combining research strategies helps reveal the diversity of digital youth faith formation.
- Mapping strategies: effective mapping requires combining in-depth online research with snowball sampling.
- National patterns in digital engagement: preliminary findings suggest national trends in digital engagement.
- Online and offline engagement: many online initiatives connect digital engagement with in-person life.
- Different approaches to digital communication: web design and maintenance reveal different levels of commitment to engaging young people.
- Beyond institutional structures: institutional structures do not fully reflect the ecosystem of digital youth faith formation.
- Multiple forms of digital evangelisation: digital youth faith formation goes beyond formal online learning.
- Networks and hybrid approaches: digital youth evangelisation can involve collaboration between multiple actors and initiatives.
What does this tell us? Digital youth faith formation is a diverse and interconnected ecosystem.