By Eddie Barnes.
The start of 2026 marks a particularly exciting moment in the John Smith Centre’s evolution. As of today (12 Jan 2026), we are officially a teaching institution.
A group of honours students here at the University of Glasgow will attend the first seminar of our new UK Youth Poll course.
In a first for anywhere in the UK, students will be given a whistle-stop introduction into the science and art of polling before immediately getting the chance to put it all into practice.
Questions they design on subjects they see as important to young people will be included as part of the John Smith Centre’s 2026 UK Youth Poll.
They will then present those findings when the UK Youth Poll is published in April.
The course has been designed by the Centre’s new lecturer, Dr Joe Greenwood-Hau. Our hope is that questions designed in the next few weeks will become the UK’s headlines for the spring.
We are hugely indebted to the Nationwide Building Society who, as with last year, are once again sponsoring this year’s UK Youth Poll. It’s a source of great pride to us that one of the UK’s great mutual companies is on board with the Centre’s mission to provide opportunities for young people to get into public service and public life, particularly those from socially excluded backgrounds.
Hear from the Youth Poll Course lecturer, Dr Joe Greenwood-Hau.
Joe’s course will include a guest lecture from James Kanagasooriam, chief research officer at FocalData and visiting professor at the University of Glasgow.
As with last year, James and the team at FocalData will be crunching the data together with us. We will also be running in-depth online interviews with hundreds of young people across the UK to get a 360-degree perspective on the issues and priorities they have.
The poll will be published in the days leading up to the crucial May elections in Scotland, Wales and parts of England. Plans are afoot for the Centre to host a hustings event in in late-April, where we will put the results of the poll directly to leading politicians – more to come soon.
The Youth Poll was always intended to be “by young people for young people ”. We’ve always hoped that it would be 16-29 year olds in charge, ensuring that the issues they care about are examined and dealt with.
With the start of our new course this week, we can say that the plan is coming to fruition.
A big thanks to all those who have got us to this stage.
