RESET – Reimagining the Transatlantic Future: Strategic Exchange for Political Youth from the Heartlands to the Hinterlands
The transatlantic partnership is under significant and growing pressure. This initiative creates a structured, nonpartisan, and values-based platform for dialogue between young political leaders from Germany and the United States. Between 2026 and 2028, a total of 60 participants aged 20 to 30—representing the youth organizations of political parties in both countries—will be brought together across three cohorts. The cohorts are deliberately nonpartisan, regionally diverse, and based outside the political centers. Especially now, dialogue is crucial to fostering mutual understanding and overcoming the significant tensions facing the partnership.
“RESET – Reimagining the Transatlantic Future: Strategic Exchange for Political Youth from the Heartlands to the Hinterlands” specifically addresses this unique moment. The project creates a structured, nonpartisan, and values-based platform for dialogue between young political leaders from Germany and the United States. Between 2026 and 2028, a total of 60 participants aged 20 to 30—representing the youth organizations of political parties in both countries—will be brought together in three cohorts. The cohorts are deliberately nonpartisan, regionally diverse, and based outside the political centers.
A structured foresight process forms the core of the project. The process looks beyond day-to-day political affairs and focuses on the long-term future of transatlantic relations. In moderated foresight workshops, participants analyze new challenges and opportunities and develop future scenarios that provide impetus for political debates at the regional, national, and transatlantic levels. Each year is dedicated to a central, future-oriented theme: security (2026), the information environment and democracy (2027), and demographic change, migration, and social cohesion (2028). Through in-person events in Germany and the U.S. as well as virtual workshop formats, the project combines personal encounters with intellectual depth.
RESET bridges a gap by reaching young people who are politically active but have had little involvement in transatlantic networks to date. It builds new transatlantic connections, fosters strategic and forward-thinking, and promotes a trusting, nonpartisan dialogue. By building bridges between regions, political camps, and generations, RESET strengthens the ability of young leaders to constructively address shared transatlantic challenges and actively shape the future of the partnership.
2026 Project Cohort
In the first year of the RESET project, the focus is on discussing the future of transatlantic security in the context of a changing geopolitical landscape. In 2026, young, politically engaged emerging leaders from Germany and the United States will come together for in-person and virtual exchanges. They represent a broad spectrum of political parties, regions, and perspectives.
The project is funded by the Federal Republic of Germany’s Transatlantic Program, using funds from the European Recovery Program (ERP) of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWE).
