NORFACE Plus

Basic Information

Description

The NORFACE Research Programme on Migration is jointly funded by the national research councils and the European Commission. The partners involved are the research councils for the social sciences from Estonia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Slovenia, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Canada and Austria participate in NORFACE as associate partners. The total funding for the programme is approximately ?28 million, including ?6 million funding from the European Commission.

Each of the 12 research projects consist of research teams from at least three NORFACE countries. The programme was launched in June 2009 and will run for a maximum of four years. The scientific coordinator of the programme is Prof Christian Dustmann, UCL/CReAM.

The Programme on Migration aims to build a new synergetic body of research, which will contribute to our theoretical understanding and knowledge in the area of Migration Research. The four main objectives of the research programme are:

? To advance globally excellent theoretical and methodological disciplinary, inter-disciplinary and comparative research on migration which builds synergetically on a pan-European basis

? To take advantage of and develop the present informal laboratory of experience, knowledge and data which migration in Europe currently presents

? To motivate and support excellence and capacity building for research on migration on a cross-national basis throughout the NORFACE countries and beyond

? To develop understanding and promote research-based knowledge and insight into migration for issues of societal, practical and policy relevance, with theoretical foundations but worked on jointly with relevant users and experts.
The research programme emphasises three main themes:

? Migration
? Integration
? Cohesion and Conflict

The Programme is coordinated by a scientific Programme Director to ensure the integration of the various funded projects into a whole which is more than the sum of its parts, to ensure good cross-communication and synergy between projects, and appropriate engagement with academic researchers and stakeholder groupings involved in migration issues both within Europe and beyond, and to help build capacity for further research in the future. Another very important aspect of the Director’s work will be to ensure outreach beyond the academic community, to policymakers and practitioners, politicians, the media, business, industry and voluntary organisations.

Main research priorities of the network

The research focus is on comparative, theory-guided, multi-level and time-referenced studies applied to relatively unexplored areas, or in fields with unresolved issues. The programme will be organised around three key themes: Migration; Integration; and Cohesion and Conflict. These areas and the issues taken up in them are conceived as separate phenomena but also as parts of a more general social process.