In each of our newsletters throughout this year, we will highlight previous research or events that ARK has carried out since 2000, in order to mark our 20th anniversary.

As you will see below, our first anniversary event will focus on devolution. Coincidentally, on 1 February 2000, we published a Research Update called Now what? Attitudes to devolution in Northern Ireland. Written by Roger Mac Ginty and Rick Wilford, this publication was based on the 1999 Northern Ireland Life and Times survey.

One of the main findings was that respondents felt that the Northern Ireland Assembly should focus on day-to-day issues rather than political issues. When asked about people's priorities for the Assembly in terms of day-to-day issues, improving the health service was top of the list. If these same questions were asked today, would the response be any different?

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The first event of our 20th anniversary celebrations will take place on 19th February, in Riddel Hall, 185 Stranmillis Road, Belfast. We are delighted that Professor John Curtice (University of Strathclyde and political commentator) and Dr Katy Hayward (Queen's University Belfast) will take part in a seminar to assess how the constitutional preferences and sense of national identity of people living in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have evolved since the advent of devolution in 1999.

The event is free, but places need to be booked in advance.

We are very grateful for the financial support of Queen's Policy Engagement through the ESRC Impact Acceleration Account.

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CAIN has received funding from the Reconciliation Fund of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to compile an on-line archive of the speeches, statements, articles, etc., by John Hume.

The work on this project began with a donation of source materials that Sean Farren had collected during the research on his book John Hume: In his own words.

The new section will be available later in 2020.

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In December 2019, Dirk Schubotz (YLT Director), alongside Michelle Templeton from the Centre for Children's Rights at Queen's University, was invited to attend a meeting of a Think Tank on participatory research with children and young people. The Think Tank meeting was organised by the Faculty of Social Studies at the University College 'Hochschule RheinMain' in Wiesbaden (Germany). Academics from Cyprus, Ethiopia, Germany, Portugal and Queen's University attended the meeting.

Over two days, attendees discussed the challenges of participatory research with children and young people, children's rights, the ethics of participatory research with children and young people and challenges of research with children and young people in different cultural contexts. Amongst other issues, Michelle and Dirk talked about a recent participatory research project completed with the Belfast City Youth Forum on relationship and sexuality education.