A Birmingham-based theatre company are about to launch figures that prove that young people are far more likely to become active and responsible citizens if they have been involved in educational theatre or drama activities.

DICE ("Drama Improves Lisbon Key Competences in Education"), is a major research project that has been conducted by the award-winning Big Brum and its project partners over the last two years with funding from the EU. The remarkable findings are to be launched internationally at a series of 12 national conferences, the first of which will be in Birmingham on 3rd December.

The research has been carried out across eleven European countries and Palestine, by professionals from the fields of drama, theatre-in-education, young people’s theatre and youth theatre. Big Brum, which has been delivering outstanding theatre-in-education work in the Midlands for nearly 30 years, was the UK representative and worked as a leading partner on the project.

The cross-cultural study investigated the effects of educational theatre and drama on different aspects of young people's development including – unusually - entrepreneurship and civic engagement. The findings, drawn from nearly 5,000 young people working on over 100 different drama programmes, unequivocally indicate that young people who do drama - in or out of school – are more interested in the world of business, more able to spot opportunities and more able to refine their ideas to persuade others than their peers are. It also clearly shows that they are much more likely to accept people of other ethnicities, more likely to be interested in getting involved in public and social issues and, significantly, more likely to vote in elections than those young people who aren’t involved in any kind of dramatic or theatrical activities.

Big Brum's Artistic Director, Chris Cooper, recently presented the findings to the EU in Brussels. Jan Truszczynski, European Director General for Education, Training, Culture and Youth, said: "The research, when I looked at it, seems to show quite clearly the positive influence of theatre on learning. It seems to demonstrate and actually to confirm that all the young people who participated in educational theatre and drama activities are more likely to feel creative, and are better at problem solving, they seem to be more innovative, they seem to be more entrepreneurial."

"When I look at the list of the things that young people who have benefitted from those drama activities seem to do better than before, I was so impressed that I said to myself – it can not be really true, it can not be that one field of activity can generate so many positive outputs all at once. And yet, and yet, what one reads is promising and is impressive."

The UK conference was be held at the Woodbroke Study Centre in Birmingham on Friday 3 December. Details are held here.