Karen Vandeweghe

Deputy Head of Unit – Youth and Volunteer Solidarity

Since January 2021, Karen Vandeweghe has been the Deputy Head of Unit of the unit B.3 ‘Youth and Volunteer Solidarity’ within the Directorate-General for Education, Youth, Sport and Culture (DG EAC). This unit is responsible for shaping EU Youth policy, and for managing two EU youth programmes, which are Erasmus+ Youth including DiscoverEU and the European Solidarity Corps. EU Youth policy and the EU Youth programmes support actions and initiatives that empower young people and youth organisations across Europe.

Previously (2018-2021), she was the DiscoverEU project manager in the same unit. She launched the DiscoverEU action in 2018, which is the action that provides rail passes to 18 years old to discover Europe, and she developed it into a fully-fledged Erasmus+ action.  She also has experience in interregional cooperation, having worked for the INTERREG programmes at the Commission (DG REGIO) and in Bratislava (Slovakia), as well as in the areas of health, ageing and migration issues, through her work for European NGOs (EuroHealthNet and AGE Platform) and the Belgian Ministry of the Interior.