From evidence to responsibility: RTI’s collaboration in the Digital Youth Programme Report
RTI joined the UKRI-funded Digital Youth Programme and MindTech for a landmark event at County Hall, London, exploring how digital technologies affect young people’s mental health and how responsible research can turn evidence into action.
Overview
Digital technologies shape young people’s everyday lives, with profound implications for their mental health. On 13 November 2025, the UKRI-funded Digital Youth Programme and MindTech brought researchers, clinicians, young people, policymakers and industry partners together at County Hall, London, for “Digital Youth X MindTech: Digital risk, resilience and interventions: co-creating change in youth mental health”.
The event showcased cutting-edge evidence on digital risk and resilience, highlighting how principles of responsibility can guide future research, policy, and innovation in this space.
Key Discussions and Insights
The morning session drew on core Digital Youth studies to move beyond debates about “screen time” towards a more precise focus on what young people do online and how they feel while doing it. Talks from the ‘Dynamic Interplay of Online Risk and Resilience in Adolescence’ (DIORA) project examined how specific digital activities and adolescents’ emotional reactions predict changes in depression and well-being over time.
Presentations on SPARX, a gamified computerised Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) intervention for adolescent depression, and on socially assistive robots to support emotion regulation among LGBTQ+ young people at risk of self-harm, illustrated the promise and complexity of digital interventions. Contributions from Sprouting Minds, the programme’s youth advisory group, emphasised co-production and lived experience as central to designing meaningful support.
Highlights
Keynote speaker Professor Amy Orben (University of Cambridge) reflected on “fixing the science of technology harms”, challenging the field to strengthen methods, measures and interpretation when evaluating technology’s impact on youth mental health.
A subsequent policy spotlight panel, chaired by Professor Peter Fonagy CBE and featuring Baroness Hilary Cass and Professor Bernadka Dubicka, explored how emerging evidence should inform regulation, clinical guidance and service provision.
In the afternoon, interactive workshops addressed practical challenges, including designing and implementing digital platforms for remote assessment and monitoring, building effective industry partnerships, working with large datasets, and utilising creative approaches to research and patient and public involvement.
A panel on “bridging the valley of death” examined how to move promising tools from trials into implementation and commercialisation, followed by a closing keynote from Professor Cathy Creswell (University of Oxford) on taking digital interventions for youth from research to practice.
RTI and the Digital Youth Programme
A central aim of the day was the launch of the Digital Youth Programme Report, which synthesises learning across the consortium and sets out priorities for safer, more supportive digital environments for young people.
Within this programme, the Responsible Technology Institute (RTI) leads Work Package 1 on Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI), ensuring that evidence on digital risk and resilience is translated into responsible practice. Drawing on RTI’s RRI work, the report highlights cross-cutting principles for governance, anticipatory reflection, and inclusive, meaningful involvement of young people in all stages of research and innovation.
By foregrounding questions of responsibility alongside empirical findings, RTI’s contribution helps ensure that new digital tools and policies are not only effective, but also trustworthy, equitable and aligned with young people’s rights and needs.
More information about the Digital Youth Programme and its research can be found here.
Why This Matters
This collaboration exemplifies how RTI applies the principles of Responsible Research and Innovation to address urgent societal challenges, ensuring that the technologies shaping young people’s digital lives are developed and deployed responsibly.
