After the crisis is before the crisis: resilience of local authorities in the face of the challenges of flight, return and circular migration

Integration Department

Project head: Prof. Dr. Magdalena Nowicka ,  Dr. Nora Ratzmann

Project team members: Denis Zekovic

The immigration and emigration or circular migration of people with migration and refugee experience offers German local authorities great opportunities. At the same time, they face challenges of constant adaptation to the needs of new groups and their specifics regarding housing, childcare, schooling, integration into the local labor market or health care. Refugee movements, such as in 2015/2016 from Syria or the current immigration from Ukraine, can present cities and municipalities with new bottlenecks, even if municipalities fundamentally benefit from immigration and often perceive it as an enrichment.

Resilient municipalities can respond quickly and flexibly to such crisis situations based on appropriate resources, structures and knowledge if they learn from previous events and anticipate new ones. This includes quickly recognizing the needs of newly immigrated or otherwise marginalized groups. The current war situation in Ukraine offers German municipalities just such a moment of "stress test" that can stimulate rethinking, and which we are monitoring scientifically.

Against this background, our project examines the experiences and strategies of municipalities to date with regard to different forms of migration and promotes exchange between selected municipalities in Germany and in other European countries (including Poland and Sweden). The goal is to jointly develop recommendations for action for the timely integration of immigrants, especially to the federal government, which can create the framework conditions for such an integration policy.

To this end, the project is conducting a series of research and transfer activities to better understand the tension between long-term integration efforts on the part of municipal institutions and the needs of those affected, using the example of refugees from Ukraine. In a multi-stage process, the experiences of civil society actors who play a central role in supporting the arrival and integration of refugees from Ukraine will be collected and analyzed, and then discussed with representatives of the municipalities. Within the framework of a series of dialogues, perceptions of the needs of the target groups on the one hand, and practices on the administrative side on the other hand, will be reflected.

Funding: Robert Bosch Stiftung (Third-party funding)

Cooperation partner:

FORUM Netzwerk