With two new H2020 projects on migration and immigrant integration, one FWO postdoctoral project on immigration policies, and a European research project on the BLM movement, the IES’ Migration, Diversity and Justice (MDJ) research cluster has had a particularly successful year with respect to research grants.
The H2020 project ‘BRIDGES’ will study the production and impact of migration narratives. In this project, the IES will lead a Work Package on the (non-)impact of awareness raising campaigns on potential migrants’ decisions in West-Africa. A second H2020 research project, WHOLE-COM, will research post-2015 immigrant settlement policies in small and medium-sized towns in Europe: which policies do they develop, and why? What is the impact of these policies? And how do local authorities interact with national policy makers? The VUB participation in this project is realized via BIRMM, the VUB’s interdisciplinary Centre of Expertise on Migration and Minorities and is at the crossroads of political science (Ilke Adam, Laura Westerveen) and social geography (Nick Schuermans).
The MDJ cluster will also kick off a new FWO post-doc project on sub-national immigration policies in federal states. It has been awarded to Cathérine Xhardez (currently Concordia University), who will join the IES in October. Furthermore, PhD researcher Folashade Ajayi has been selected as a project partner for a new European research project on the impact of the Black Lives Matter Movement in Germany, Italy, Denmark and Poland. This German government funded research project is a collaboration between the German Centre of Integration and Migration Research (DeZIM), Scuola Normale Superiore, University of Copenhagen and the Polish Academy of Sciences.
