National Integration Evaluation Mechanism (NIEM) website launch

How can we improve the refugee integration policies?  The biggest research project in the EU dedicated to answering this question launches its ‘Forintegration.eu’ website

What is the eligibility criteria for refugees to acquire citizenship in individual EU states? What is the average waiting time for a child to be accepted into a school, from the moment of filing the request for asylum in Poland or in Italy? What are the rules and attitudes in different European countries regarding the refugees’ access to the job market? News stories, facts and research results related to the different aspects of national integration polices towards refugees will be systematically published on a new ‘Forintegration.eu’ web portal.

The ‘Forintegration.eu’ website is a comprehensive source of information about the refugee integration policies in Europe and will be the key way of presenting research results prepared within the framework of the National Integration Evaluation Mechanism (NIEM), which is the biggest research project in Europe dedicated to the refugees integration.

The NIEM project initiated in 2016 aims to improve the quality and effectiveness of the integration process of refugees in fifteen European states including the Netherlands, France, Spain, Bulgaria, Sweden, Slovenia and Hungary.

For the next six years, analysts from European academic institutions and leading non-governmental organisations will evaluate the current refugee and asylum-seeker integration policy.  The new ‘Forintegration.eu’ web portal will collect all related information and essential data and keep them in one place.

“For Europe, integrating refugees is the next big challenge,” admits Justyna Segeš Frelak, the Head of the Migration Policy Program at the Institute of Public Affairs in Poland. “It is a challenge because we haven’t developed common European integration policy standards towards refugees. In addition, we face an ongoing lack of knowledge about which refugee integration legal instruments enable asylum seekers to effectively integrate into the European societies and which ones slow down the whole integration process”.

The ‘Forintegration.eu’ web portal was designed to fill the knowledge gaps.  Anna Piłat, the website editor and the migration policy analyst at the Institute of Public Affairs, hopes that the website will become the biggest and the most credible source of facts and figures related to refugee integration in the EU. The web portal will benefit from the rich output of the NIEM project and the diverse research experience of the whole consortium involved in the project implementation.

“We believe that by providing the unique statistical data, comprehensive scientific reports and essential information and features, this new site will offer the European community better understanding of the refugee integration mechanisms in the EU” adds Anna Piłat.

This newly launched website also offers quick and easy access to various reports from meetings, conferences and other events organised within the framework of the NIEM project.  In addition, the website has a section with updated information about forthcoming events related to the subject of refugee integration in various EU countries.

The website is available in English and some parts will be also available in local languages.

The National Integration Evaluation Mechanism. Monitoring and improving the integration of international protection beneficiaries is co-founded by the National Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund.

Media contact at Maastricht University:

Dersim Yabasun, d.yabasun@maastrichtuniversity.nl

Natasja Reslow, n.reslow@maastrichtuniversity.nl