Erasmus research cluster Governance of Migration and Integration

A joint reseach cluster from Public Administration and Sociology Department
Overview of projects and researchers

Erasmus University research cluster on the Governance of Migration and Integration

The research cluster on migration and integration policies of the Erasmus University Rotterdam is now complete for the upcoming year. The cluster involves various joint projects of the department of Public Administration (research group Public Policy & Politics) and the department of Sociology (CIMIC Institute), each concentrating on issues of governance in the domains of migration and migrant integration. Working on 6 long-term scientific projects, the cluster now involves a group of 8 persons from both departments, with a total budget of about 1.250.000 euros. 

Involved researchers:

• Prof.dr. Han Entzinger, Professor of Migration & Integration Studies, Department of Sociology.
• Prof.dr. Victor Bekkers, Professor of Public Administration & Public Policy, Department of Public Administration.
• Dr. Peter Scholten, Associate Professor of Public Policy & Politics, Department of Public Administration.
• Dr. Rebecca Moody, Postdoctoral researcher, Department of Public Administration.
• Dr. Semin Suvarierol, Postdoctoral researcher, Departments of Public Administration and Sociology.
• Stijn Verbeek MSc, Postdoctoral researcher, Departments of Public Administration and Sociology.
• Carolina Ivanescu MSc, Postdoctoral researcher, Departments of Public Administration and Sociology.
• Rianne Dekker MSc, PhD Student, Department of Public Administration.

Current projects:

UniteEurope; the role of ICT-tools in the E-Governance of Immigrant Integration (FP7 project)

Project team (BSK): Prof.dr. Victor Bekkers, Dr. Peter Scholten, Dr. Rebecca Moody, Rianne Dekker MSc.

UniteEurope aims at giving the main actors of integration – immigrants and members of the host societies – a voice by analysing public Social Media contents generated by citizens. This bottom-up approach allows revealing urban integration issues as they are actually experienced by those concerned. Thereby, the UniteEurope tool is meant to enable local decision makers to identify focal points, but also positive developments, as well as to initiate effective, efficient and sustainable integration measures and policies. An extensive in-depth analysis of urban administration as well as integration issues and measures, mainly gathered by qualitative methods of social research, should serve as the basis for software development. In close cooperation between social scientists and IT-specialists, an integration issue grid model with multi-layer logic patterns will be used for consistent categorisation of relevant integration areas (e.g. education, business, culture, etc.) in cities. Coherent layers with multilingual semantic tags, significant sources and parameters will make up the logical core of the tool. UniteEurope supports operational integration measures and strategic policy development at regional and pan-European level. The UniteEurope team consists of experts in E-Government, Social Media and integration from leading universities and competence centres, as well as system architects, software developers, companies, cities and NGOs from Austria, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden. The team is counselled by international NGOs dealing with immigration, integration and asylum issues. The UniteEurope project is coordinated by INSET from Austria. The Erasmus University Research team is primarily involved with the social-scientific analysis of integration issues and local integration policies on which the ICT tools for social media analysis are to be developed.
More information, see www.uniteeurope.org
Period: 2011-2014
EUR-budget: +/- 550.000

DIAMINT: Science-Society Dialogues on Migrant Integration in Europe (funded by VolkswagenStiftung)

Project team (BSK/SOC): Prof.dr. Han Entzinger, Dr. Peter Scholten, Stijn Verbeek MSc.

DIAMINT is an international comparative project that is coordinated by the Erasmus University Rotterdam. The focus is on the role that the social sciences have played in shaping public understanding of processes of immigrant integration. The project analysis how over the past few decades research–policy dialogues on these processes have developed into a much more complex science-society dialogue in several European countries. This is done from the perspective of the changing role of science in a society that itself is also in transformation. In today’s science-society dialogues, scientific knowledge no longer seems accepted merely as objective knowledge. Citizens appear increasingly reflective in terms of their acceptance (or criticism) of knowledge claims. Furthermore, the contextuality of knowledge claims has become increasingly manifest as science-society dialogues have opened up and internationalized. Finally, there has been a growing recognition of the uncertainty of scientific knowledge. The research provides an in-depth analysis of how the social transformations just mentioned have contributed to a reconfiguration of science-society dialogues on immigrant integration in a number of European countries (Austria, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, United Kingdom) as well as on the EU- level.
Period: 2011-2013
Total budget +/- 363.00 EUR-budget: +/- 123.000

AMICALL: Attitudes Toward Migrants, Communication and Local Leadership (EIF project)

Project team (BSK/SOC): Prof.dr. Han Entzinger, Dr. Peter Scholten, Stijn Verbeek MSc.

AMICALL is an eighteen-month transnational project. It is funded by the European Union’s Fund for the Integration of Third Country Nationals (European Integration Fund – EIF) under its Community Actions 2009 programme; COMPAS (Oxford University) coordinates the overall project, while EUR leads an important workpackage within the overall project. It specifically responds to Priority 3 of the 2009 programme: “Promote the role of civil society organisations and the local authorities in shaping integration strategies.” Led by a partnership of six European research institutions, with the Council of Europe as an associate partner, the project seeks to provide a platform for the sharing of good practice and the development of new strategies for the promotion of positive attitudes towards migrants and towards migrant integration at the local and regional level. Thus it addresses two core areas of integration policy and debate: the role of local and regional authorities (LRAs) in integration, and the importance of communication and public attitudes.
More information
Period: 2012-2013
EUR-budget: +/- 86.000

IMPACIM: Impact of Admission Criteria on the Integration of Migrants (EIF project)

Project team (BSK/SOC): Prof.dr. Han Entzinger, Dr. Peter Scholten, Dr. Semin Suvarierol, Carolina Ivanescu Msc.

IMPACIM is an eighteen month project, funded by the EU fund for the Integration of Third Country Nationals, commencing on 31 December 2011. The aim is to investigate the impact of admission criteria that impose restrictive conditions of stay (in particular those relating to jobs, services, benefits and voting), on the economic, social, cultural and political integration of third country nationals in four EU Member States: Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom. These countries were chosen for their differing labour market and welfare systems, differing restrictions on access to jobs, services, welfare benefits and voting, and differing categories of family migrant to which those conditions of stay apply, in order to compare the impacts that different patterns of entitlement and restrictions can have on integration outcomes. The project is coordinated by the Center on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS) of Oxford University; the Erasmus University team is responsible for coordination of workpackages on local admission policies.
Period: 2012-2013
EUR-budget: +/- 186.000

PROSINT: Promoting Sustainable Integration Policies for the Future (EIF project cofinanced by Dutch Department of Home Affairs)

Project team (BSK/SOC/UT): Prof.dr. Han Entzinger, Dr. Peter Scholten, Prof.dr. Sawitri Saharso (Twente University)

International research project on the connection between Migration and Integration Policies and the effects on patterns of integration of TCN’s. The project is coordinated by the ICMPD (International Center for Migration Policy Development) in Vienna, and funded by the European Commission Integration Fund for Third Country Nationals and the Dutch Department for Housing and Spatial Planning. EUR coordinates the Dutch case within this project, which is implemented together with Prof.dr. Sawitri Saharso from Twente University and Prof.dr. Han Entzinger from Erasmus University In addition, EUR coordinates the international comparison of pre-entry admission policies.
More information
Period: 2011-2013
EUR-budget: +/- 47.00

Beyond National Models of Integration? A multi-level perspective on agenda dynamics and policy change (Dutch Science Foundation VENI project)

Project team (BSK): Dr. Peter Scholten

Immigrant integration policies are commonly described in terms of ‘national models of integration’, such as the French Republican model or the Dutch Multicultural model. This idea of consistent and coherent national models is challenged by the increasingly multi-level dynamics of policy agendas in this domain. Integration policies have acquired a multi-level character and waves of public and political attention to integration problems are often unpredictable and uncontrollable. Policies at various levels can follow specific paths of development, involving different ways of defining and acting upon (‘framing’) immigrant integration. This can complicate the effective multi-level governance of immigrant integration. Therefore, this research analyzes the relation between agenda dynamics on local, national and European levels and the multi-level governance of immigrant integration. The project develops a comparative perspective involving the European, national (France, the UK and the Netherlands) and local level (six cities). Peter has received an individual research grant (VENI) for this research project, which will be finished in 2014.
Period: 2011-2014
EUR-budget: +/- 250.000


Participation in research networks:

IMISCOE (International Migration, Integration and Social Cohesion in Europe)

• Han Entzinger: chair of board of directors
• Peter Scholten: coordinator of research cluster ‘research-policy dialogues on migration and integration in Europe’

CGM (Centrum voor Geschiedenis van Migranten)

• Peter Scholten member of board of CGM

Council for European Studies

• Membership of Immigration Research group
• Host of editorial office of ‘Perspectives on Europe’
• Peter Scholten member of organization committee of CES annual conference in Amsterdam.