Creating a Culture of Youth as Co-Researchers: The Kickoff of a Year-Long STEM Pipeline Program.

STEM pipeline programs often include research experiences for youth, but fewer focus on youth as shared decision-makers or leaders in research efforts. Youth participatory action research (YPAR) and community-based participatory research (CBPR) orientations suggest that the quality and relevance of research will benefit from youth partnership. Because youth do not traditionally have the opportunity to serve in this type of leadership capacity, STEM pipeline programs that wish to elevate the role of youth in research must create a new culture of co-creation that upends the traditional pedagogical models adolescents experience in high school. We present Research Kickoff as a strategy to engage youth as co-researchers from their very first experience in a year-long STEM pipeline program. We designed activities around a framework consisting of six components: content, process, voice, network, engagement, and culture. Each of the six components of our framework are represented in a series of activities that include participatory research processes, inviting collaboration and valuing diverse expertise, and relationship building. To inform future programs interested in engaging youth as co-researchers, we detail the iterative development of Research Kickoff over two cohorts and describe how it serves to engage youth as change agents from the first touch.