Pere Soler Maso

Pere Soler Maso is a full Professor at the Department of Pedagogy, University of Girona, with a doctorate in Education. His academic career is centered at the Institute for Educational Research at the University of Girona where he serves as co-director of the LIBERI Research Group on Childhood, Youth and Community. He is also part of the Consolidated Research Group Childhood and Youth: Social and Community Action (IJASC), recognized by the Generalitat of Catalonia.

His primary research interests focus on youth policies, child and youth participation, community development, leisure education, and socio-cultural animation. He has developed his research line through the study of young people in their free time, socio-cultural associations, and programs that contribute to youth empowerment. His work examines how educational contexts and community settings facilitate youth empowerment processes, with particular attention to non-formal educational spaces.

The trends in his recent publications demonstrate a clear focus on youth empowerment as a central theme across diverse contexts including gender-based violence, social withdrawal phenomena like hikikomori, community development through summer camps, and the evaluation of youth policies. His research increasingly incorporates mixed-method approaches, combining quantitative surveys with qualitative discourse analysis to understand complex youth-community dynamics.

As an academic leader, Soler Maso has served as general coordinator since 2007 of the Official Interuniversity Master in Youth and Society (MIJS), taught collaboratively by six Catalan universities. His professional activities extend to evaluating journals and advising national organizations on youth issues. He has been principal investigator for multiple research projects including the evaluation of local youth policies (2010) and the current HEBE Project on youth empowerment.

His laboratory work centers around the LIBERI Research Group which investigates childhood, youth, and community dynamics through a socio-educational lens. The group's work emphasizes practical applications of research findings to inform policy and practice, particularly through community-based approaches to youth development and empowerment.