We are a collaborative academic research group based at the Universities of Lancaster, Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield and York who aim to enhance significantly the scale and scope of political and public deliberation on the vital issue of the appropriate age of enfranchisement and its potential impact upon young people’s political engagement by providing the most solid evidence base yet available.

The original project lasted 2 years (2018-2020) and was funded by the Leverhulme Trust.  We have subsequently continued our research and expanded our collaborations.  As well as continuing to publish results from the original project we also completed an 18 month research funding project (January 2021-April 2023) from the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust for our ‘Making Votes at 16 Work in Wales’ project.  This project evaluated the impact of lowering the voting age to 16 at the 2021 Senedd election on young people’s engagement with Welsh politics.

This website provides regular updates on our ongoing work including events, reports, academic publications and links to key resources related to the Votes at 16 debate.  Our ambition is for it to become the main online source for information and materials related to the Votes-at-16 debate in the UK.