Twinning for excellence in migration and integration research and networking (MIRNet)

Project Information

MIRNet

Grant agreement ID: 857366

DOI

10.3030/857366

Project closed

EC signature date 2 July 2019

Start date 1 September 2019

End date 28 February 2023

Funded under

• Twinning of research institutions

Total cost

€ 800 000,00

EU contribution

€ 800 000,00

Coordinated by

TALLINN UNIVERSITY
Estonia

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - MIRNet (Twinning for excellence in migration and integration research and networking (MIRNet))

Reporting period: 2020-12-01 to 2023-02-28

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The field of migration and integration is burgeoning in many major research centers in Western Europe and tends to be clustered into closed consortia of internationally leading research institutions, mostly located in the traditionally migrant receiving countries.
Also, much migration research tends to be focused on migration from the Global South to the Global North, while East-West migration, though gaining prominence remains relatively under researched.
Current academic focus therefore obscures the implications of East-West migration.The MIRNet project aims to address these challenges by aiming to build up better networks and research excellence in Estonia.
Estonia is one of the smallest countries in the EU, but has one of the largest percentages of foreign-born populationand emigration levels per capita.
In addition, Estonia is facing accelerating levels of labour migration and new challenges related to accepting and integrating asylum seekers.
In this societal context, the overall objective of this project is to establish Tallinn University (TU) as an internationally renowned center.
Thereby facilitating in the production of knowledge that is local, topical, and salient, and contributes to the widening of academic knowledge on migration and integration regionally and globally.
TU aims to work with a truly interdisciplinary consortium of partners: the Sussex Centre for Migration Research at the University of Sussex, the Intercultural Studies research group at Roskilde University and the Research Centre on Transnationalism and Transformation at the University of Tampere.

The specific objectives of the MIRNet project are as follows:

1.To establish a research center (POLITEIA) which would conduct locally, nationally and internationally relevant research on migration and integration, specifically East-West migration.
2.To advance the quality and volume of research with a special focus on supporting early career researchers.
3.To advance networking between academic researchers, policy makers and other stakeholders in Estonia and the MIRNet partner countries, partly via increased strategic staff mobility at TU.
4.To advance public dissemination skills of the consortium members.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

To meet the first objective a draft a statute for the center (POLITEIA) was compiled. Work has also been undertaken to develop a sustainable and viable research strategy. This strategy covers extensive C&D&E plans for the future and also presents an overview of the positioning analysis of TU in the Estonian context.

To meet the second objective research seminars, publishing workshops for early career researchers, two themed conferences, production of an edited volume and dual special issue were executred.
In the first reporting period the consortia organized 2 research seminars, an international scientific conference and scheduled a publishing workshop for early career researchers across the consortium.
In the second reporting period, the conosortium organized 5 additional research seminars, 2 publishing workshops, participated in open public seminars and also contributed to external conferences.
These efforts collectively contributed to the publishing outputs of MIRNet in the publication of an edited book and special issue journals in the field of migration and integration.

To meet the third objective, emphasis was placed on a comprehensive research strategy and numerous international, national and local funding sources were identified and targeted.
In and through project applications on different aspects of migration and integration the consortia honed its R&D networks and increased its visibility in migration and integration research.

To meet the fourth objective a yearly communication and dissemination plan identifying key target groups and dissemination strategies was produced. Additionally, a project website (and social media channels) was created to promote and disseminate MIRNet activities to wider audiences. In order to ensure timely delivery of MIRNet content and to facilitate work across diverse objectives ethical guidelines for project data and a data management plan was also. Additionally, online repositories and shared drives were set up to facilitate collaboration. In addition a project management team at TU has been set up to regularly monitor the progress of the project.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The expected impact of the project can be outlined in four key principles. The aim was to make an impact in building research capacity, developing sustainable partnership networks and improving visibility of research.
As a result, TU was expected to integrate better within the overall European Research Area and contribute in improving outputs of the Horizon 2020 programme.

The impact of MIRNet was focused on the university, national and regional level as well as on the overall European Research Area:

•At the university level, TU was expected to gain visibility as a research and competence center of migration and integration studies; improve its position in research and policy networks; and improve its research quality and capacity.
•At the national level, TU was expected to become a better dialogue partner for policy makers, which would help to tackle the recently (re-)emerged challenges related to high levels of emigration, and growing and diversifying immigration. Also, the relational paradigm was expected to complement the already authoritative economic and geographic approaches to migration studies.
•At the regional level, the project was expected to create stronger cooperation ties with research institutions in Nordic countries, as the migration corridor between Estonia and Finland is very vibrant and substantially affects both countries. Also, the project was expected to contribute to the still emerging field of East-West migration studies.
•The project was expected to contribute to the overall European Research Area via building stronger and broader networks in the field of migration and integration research. In migration and integration studies, a broad geographical coverage is of particularly high importance, which in turn should improve the output of the Horizon 2020 programme (where migration and integration issues are an important part of the societal challenges package).

While the main impact of the project was for the coordinating institution (TU), the other consortium participants, i.e. the leading research institutions, also benefitted from the project in terms of broadening their academic networks, advancing their research interest and increasing their publishing capacity. Mutual enrichment was also made possible by joint publications and project applications as well as PhD students’ events such as summer school

MIRNet Consortium