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The German Centre for Integration and Migration Research (DeZIM) conducts research into integration and migration, consensus and conflict, social participation and diversity, as well as discrimination and racism. It consists of the DeZIM Institute in Berlin and a network of research establishments throughout Germany, the DeZIM Research Community.
The DeZIM Institute is a non-university research institution and is funded by the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth (BMFSFJ). It is divided into the three research departments Integration, Migration and Consensus and Conflict. It also includes the Data-Methods-Monitoring Cluster and the Research Data Centre DeZIM.fdz, the Expert Group on Democracy Promotion and Democratic Practice and the National Discrimination and Racism Monitor (NaDiRa).
DeZIM wishes to strengthen German research on integration and migration and give it greater international visibility. For this purpose, it works together with other university and non-university research establishments. DeZIM also wants to have an impact in the areas of politics, civil society and media, and to contribute to making the discourses on integration, migration, discrimination and racism more objective. It advises representatives from the political sphere, the public sector and civil society on these topics.
Post-migrant knowledge production concerns the way in which new knowledge is produced in a society that is characterized by accompanying migration and its subsequent reorganizations and in whose analysis established questions, category systems and approaches are no longer sufficiently effective. This is not about a radical replacement of existing and well-established academic practices. Rather, it is about critical reflection, urgently needed adjustments and consistent further developments, new emphases, the consideration and integration of previously seemingly contradictory approaches and the development of innovative impulses that take appropriate account of the changed social framework conditions and the changed questions (detailed information on post-migrant knowledge production can be found here).
The following three overarching research and development priorities implement the basic idea of "post-migrant knowledge production" and the associated further development of integration and migration research in their own way.
Mapping social structures and moods using indicators is one of DeZIM's central tasks. The results inform political, public and scientific debates. Monitoring and reporting are anchored in many DeZIM projects. One example is integration reporting: DeZIM has been producing reports on indicator-based integration monitoring since 2021. This implements a contemporary understanding of integration, which is seen as a process for society as a whole.
Another example is the National Discrimination and Racism Monitor(NaDiRa), which has been investigating racism in post-migrant society since 2020 and combines theoretical racism research with empirical inequality research.
In the first five years, important structures were created at the DeZIM Institute to support empirical analyses of post-migrant society. Important data sources such as the NaDiRa.panel and the DeZIM.panel enable longitudinal observations, especially of people with a history of immigration. The Research Data Center (F DZ) archives quantitative data on migration, integration, discrimination and racism and works with the Bremen FDZ Qualiservice on solutions for qualitative data. Data protection and the personal rights of vulnerable groups are of central importance here. The DeZIM Institute follows the FAIR principles and promotes methodological skills, including through the summer school established in 2023, in order to develop creative solutions for research questions in post-migrant society.
DeZIM research is closely linked to the scientific community, politics and administration and post-migrant civil society. This connection is a constitutive element of the institute and is explicitly understood in both directions: On the one hand, it is about target group-specific and quality-assured knowledge transfer. Central research results can be found in international journals, in the practical work of local, state and federal politics/administration as well as in specialist practice and civil society. On the other hand, DeZIM research focuses on knowledge mobilization through participatory processes with key stakeholders in post-migrant society. Marginalized groups and actors are given special consideration. The exchange of content ranges from information and advice to research cooperation. Scientific standards, in particular the fundamental openness of empirical research, are ensured.
Further information about the individual areas of DeZIM can be found here:
- Executive bodies: Board of Trustees, General Assembly and Board of Directors
- Heads of institute
- Staff Unit Scientific Direction
- Fellows
- Administration
- Integration Department
- Consensus and Conflict Department
- Migration Department
- Expert Group "Democracy Promotion and Democratic Practice"
- National Monitoring of Discrimination and Racism (NaDiRa)
- Data-Methods-Monitoring Cluster
- Research Data Centre
- DeZIM Research Community
All researchers working at DeZIM are bound by the Guidelines for Safeguarding Good Research Practice.
Further information and the Guidelines for Safeguarding Good Research Practice available to download