Home Institute Research Research Projects Research Dialogues Guest Essays Partners Young Research Contact Legal Notice
DEEN
Young Research

Erpenbach Young Research

A research initiative for children and young people.

Erpenbach Young Research is a space for big questions from children and young people.

This is not about having the right answer immediately. It is about looking carefully, asking further and making your own thoughts visible.

How does the future emerge? How do we understand animals, machines, time, knowledge, nature and living together?

What it is about

Taking questions seriously

Children often ask questions that adults answer too quickly.

Erpenbach Young Research keeps such questions open. They can show how young people perceive the world, the future, animals, machines, nature, time and living together.


Formats

Annual question, competition and archive

Annual Question 2026

If you could show children 100 years from now one thing, what would it be?

The 2026 annual question invites children and young people to think about what they would show children 100 years from now. It could be an object, an idea, a memory, a place, an invention, an animal or something else entirely.

Erpenbach Young Research Award

The annual competition

The Erpenbach Young Research Award recognises special ideas, projects and contributions by children and young people. Further information on future calls will be published here.

Archive

Collecting questions and contributions

Previous annual questions, selected contributions and winning entries will be documented here later. The archive will be built with the first completed Young Research year.


Questions to think about

Open questions for reflection

These are open questions for children, families, schools and groups.

Can a machine miss something?
Why is an animal not simply a small human?
How do you know that you know something?
What does time feel like?
What does a future need for children to want to live in it?

For schools, parents and responsible adults

Participation and submission

Once submissions are open, they will be made through parents, schools or responsible adults.

Contributions will be reviewed before any possible publication. Publication only takes place anonymously or with an explicitly agreed form of name.

Further information on participation, submission, consent and publication will follow. The submission function will only be activated once the terms of participation and data protection texts are finalised.