Ukraine Engagement in Germany

New and Old Forms of Engagement for Refugees

Consensus and Conflict Department

Project head: Dr. Ramona Rischke ,  Dr. Elias Steinhilper ,  Dr. Zeynep Yanaşmayan ,  Prof. Dr. Sabrina Zajak

Project team members: Sifka Etlar Frederiksen ,  Liam Haller

The war in Ukraine and the resulting flight of millions of people have once again put the reception of refugees at the centre of the public debate in Europe. Similar to 2015, volunteers are pitching in and organising support or politically campaigning for the rights of refugees. It is remarkable that many people are opening the doors of their houses and flats to those seeking protection. Private accommodation is currently making a significant contribution to ensuring the accommodation of arrivals from Ukraine. At the same time, there is a need for other forms of engagement for refugees, be it in accompanying them to the authorities, in language acquisition or in sponsorships.

At the moment, however, we know little about what exactly engagement looks like in times of war in Ukraine. We don't know who is getting involved, for what reasons and with what attitude patterns. Are they the same people who were already active in 2015/2016, or is the Ukraine war activating other population groups? Similarly, we know little about the concrete practice of housing, such as the spatial conditions, the support and counselling needs of people hosting refugees, and the challenges. Has their engagement in general and private hosting in particular changed how they perceive refugees? By answering these questions, we can capture the current extent, shape, opportunities and challenges of refugee engagement. The findings will also enable us to better support engaged people and the government agencies, initial reception centres and charities that work with them.

In order to close the research gap and address the acute lack of data, the project pursues an integrated research design that combines findings from different surveys with different sampling strategies, content-related foci and cooperation partners. This includes firstly a quantitative survey of private accommodation providers (including the extent, form and duration of accommodation, access to support services, practices and challenges of private accommodation (in short "private accommodation survey") and secondly a population survey of engaged people (in short "engagement survey"). Building on and inspired by previous surveys on refugee engagement (Volunteer Survey 2019, Allensbach Study on Refugee Engagement 2018), the survey allows for more differentiated insights into fields of activity, motivations, and experiences in engagement (including reasons for engagement termination). Finally, we supplement the quantitative surveys with qualitative background interviews to gain relevant contextual knowledge, an analysis of social media debates, and possibly, from 2023 onwards, discussion rounds on selected key questions with volunteers ("focus groups").

The results of the project will enable us to formulate recommendations for action for politics and society on how to sustainably strengthen the engagement for refugees and improve the accommodation situation.

Publications:

1) DeZIM.insights Working Paper (2022): New platforms for engagement: Private accommodation of forced migrants from Ukraine.

Expert panel on the engagement survey:

Dr. Julia Simonson
Head of Research and Deputy Director of the German Centre of Gerontology (DZA)

Prof. Dr. Jochen Roose
Konrad Adenauer Foundation, Department of Analysis and Consulting

Dr. Holger Krimmer
Managing Director of ZiviZ gGmbH

Funding: Federal Ministry of Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth (Third-party funding)