The John Smith Centre is a non-partisan organisation working to open doors to public life and politics for young people. This project will specifically focus on those young people who come from underrepresented backgrounds, i.e. those from socio-economic deprived areas, lower educational attainment, care-experience, women, ethnicity, disability, and others. It will utilise UK Youth Poll data, an annual poll run by the Centre, as well as potentially new polling for this purpose as well as secondary literature available in the academic and public sphere. 

Expected outputs: 

• A final report providing an overview of the UK’s underrepresented young people in political and civic life, to be published in summer/autumn 2026 

• A variety of research blog posts for the John Smith Centre Research & Insights platform, highlighting findings from the research (e.g. by demographic group) throughout the time of the internship  

• Where time allows, an academic publication off the back of the new polling for this 

• Additionally, the intern would be expected to support the Centre’s communication and impact work in regard to the project, incl. creating social media content, video content or print material.

Additionally, the intern would support the Centre staff with curating blog posts from external authors for the Centre’s Research & Insights platform.