On 9 March, the prizes of the First Edition of the Youth Chair Awards were presented to the winners. The Youth Chair Awards aim to promote the study of topics related to youth among university students.

At the awards ceremony, the winners of the First Edition of the Youth Chair Awards for the best undergraduate degree final project (TFG) and best doctoral thesis were presented and the corresponding prized and diplomas were awarded.

The prize for the best TFG went to Andrea Roche Collados, with the project titled: “Participatory processes as an engine for rural development: the perspective of young people in Gúdar-Javalambre (Teruel)".

This study, tutored by Professor Maria Jesús Perales (Research Methods and Diagnosis in Education), carries out a participatory research focused on detecting the needs and preferences of young people in the Gúdar-Javalambre region. The aim of this TFG is to find out their needs and preferences, in order to encourage the return and retention of the young population in the rural world, making them active participants aware of the process of improvement of their municipalities.

The prize for the best Doctoral Thesis went to Nerea Gómez Fernández, with her thesis entitled "Use of statistical methods for the analysis of educational data: the role of ICT in the educational context", supervised by Mauro Mediavilla (Applied Economics) and José Miguel Carot.

This doctoral thesis studies the role of ICT as a determinant of the academic performance of secondary school students, as well as the factors that favour the use of ICT in the classroom by teachers. The results confirm that certain types of ICT use affect young people's academic performance and that there are key factors that explain teachers' decisions to implement ICT in the classroom.