This paper discusses the possibilities and challenges in involving young people in the carrying out of an academic systematic literature review. There have been few documented attempts to involve young people in this seemingly perhaps ‘dry’ academic kind of research. The review, funded by Joseph Rowntree Foundation, looked at evidence for interventions that raise the attainment of disadvantaged young people via a change in attitudes of children or parents. A young person researcher was involved in consulting with other young people in the process of responding to the initial themes emerging from the review. She also took a full part in a seminar half way through the project in which emerging themes were discussed by a group of ‘expert consultants’. Her involvement presented a number of challenges and dilemmas which included: how to include primary research in a review synthesizing secondary research; the positioning of the young person (whether the young person was a collaborator in the research, a ‘subject’, or a researcher who was collecting aspect of data without other involvement in the research); and the different kinds of knowledge claims that this primary research posed (ie perspectives of young people vs academic literature synthesis).