Promoting Sustainable Policies for Integration (PROSINT)

While integration policies as such are not new (in some countries they date back to the 1980s and beyond), during the past decade there have been important shifts in the debates on integration and in integration policy making.

Several main trends can be distinguished:
• Linking of integration policy with admission policy and the related focus on recent immigrants
• Increasing use of obligatory integration measures and integration conditions in admission policy
• Integration policy making is increasingly influenced by European developments, both through vertical and through horizontal policy processes.

Objectives
While an increasing number of EU Member States have adopted integration related measures as part of their admission policy, the impact of such measures, however, is less clear.
• To evaluate the impact of admission related integration policies on the integration of newcomers
• To analyse the different logics underlying integration policy making
• To investigate the main target groups of compulsory and voluntary integration measures

Outcomes
The study covers 9 countries (Austria, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Germany, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, United Kingdom) and the outcomes relate to empirical analysis of:
• European and national policy frameworks in the selected countries
• Pre-arrival measures
• Post-arrival integration measures for newcomers
• Socioeconomic impact of admission related integration measures
• Integration trajectories for recent migrants not targeted by integration programmes for newcomers

Project duration: December 2009 - June 2011
Funding: European Commission, DG JLS (European Integration Fund), JLS/2008/EIFX/CA/1039 
Project coordination: Elisabeth Strasser (currently on maternity leave), Albert Kraler

Project partners: Multicultural Centre Prague (CZ); European Forum for Migration Studies (efms) (DE); International and European Forum of Migration Research (IT); Erasmus University Rotterdam and School of Management and Governance, Social Risks and Safety Studies, University of Twente (NL); University of Barcelona (ES); Social Policy Research Centre, University of Middlesex (GB); Department of Politics, University of Sheffield (GB).

PROSINT conference Austria:
"Shaping immigration for integration? Reflecting on the links between immigration and integration policy"

Thursday, 6 October 2011 Haus der Europäischen Union, Wipplingerstraße 35, 1010 Wien

This conference builds upon the findings of a recent comparative European research project, "Promoting Sustainable Policies on Integration" (PROSINT), which studied the linkage between integration and migration policies in nine European countries (Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom).

Conference programme:
English, German

Conference registration:
English, German