Our aim is to involve public officials and local stakeholders in the development and implementation of local level integration policies in selected European cities.

The International Training Centre of the International Labour Organization (ITC-ILO) is the consortium leader in charge of the implementation of this project. The consortium research partners are the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS) at the University of Oxford and the International and European Forum of Migration Research (FIERI).

Activism on migrant integration in European cities has produced a wealth of practical experience and knowledge. Work around consolidating and sharing good practice has been less common. There is a need to create city-to-city synergies. Over the last few years different policy-oriented networking initiatives targeting local integration authorities have been launched. However, few have been able to trigger concrete processes of policy improvement or induce sustainable policy transfer.

We have decided it is time to use our knowledge and networks in order to address this and deliver structured training initiatives which target and directly involve public officials and local stakeholders.

About the partners:

Within the Social Protection Programme of ITC-ILO, the international labour migration team specializes in facilitating training courses to build the capacity building of constituents working in the field of labour migration, with the aim of extending Decent Work to all migrant workers, bearing in mind the positive contributions migration can make towards economic and social development.

The Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS) at the University of Oxford is a research centre geared to deepening our understanding of the relationship between migration and societal change.

COMPAS has five core research clusters: flows and dynamics, labour markets, citizenship and belonging, urban change and settlement and welfare. COMPAS has also established the Migration Observatory, a multi-media platform providing user-friendly access to authoritative and independent analysis of data on migrants and migration issues.

Integration has been among the key considerations in COMPAS's work throughout its nearly 10 years and the centre has been involved in several comparative European projects dealing with integration.

Some examples of comparative European integration projects currently and previously undertaken include:

• Attitudes to Migrants, Communications, and Local Leadership (AMICALL)
• Cohesion, integration, migration: urbanism, city change, and the future of multiculturalism
• Concordia Discors: Understanding Conflict and Integration Outcomes of Inter-Group Relations and Integration Policies in selected Neighbourhoods of Five European Cities

The International and European Forum of Migration Research (FIERI) is a research centre and an interdisciplinary network based in Turin, Italy. Its research focus concerns migratory phenomena in contemporary societies. The main aim is to feed the public debate and provide public decision-makers with solid empirical evidence and knowledge tools on the migration phenomenon and its management.

FIERI activity is articulated in various areas: integration, immigration and flows, transnationalism, gender and generation, welfare. In all these areas, FIERI carries out projects which look at the socio-economic and cultural processes on the one hand, and at policies on the other.

Integration is one of the most rooted activity strands of FIERI. Here are the most recent projects carried out at the European level on this research topic:

• Concordia Discors - Understanding Conflict and Integration Outcomes of Inter-Group Relations and Integration Policies in selected Neighbourhoods of Five European Cities (2010-2012)
• Demochange (Demographic change in the Alps spatial planning adaptation strategies) (2010-2012), developed within the programme “Alpine Space”

Shifting to policies, in these last years FIERI has been involved in projects concerning different aspects of integration.  It was partner in the projects:

• Attitudes to Migrants, Communication and Local Leadership: a transnational learning network to share and develop best practice among local and regional authorities in building public understanding of immigration and integration (AMICALL) (2010-2012), led by COMPAS of the University of Oxford.
• Promoting Integration for Migrant Domestic Workers in Europe (IMDW) funded by the European Fund for the Integration of Third Country Nationals and coordinated by the ILO, with the goal of expanding the knowledge about the possible integration outcomes of admission and employment policies for migrant domestic workers and enhance stakeholders' capacities to identify and remove barriers for their socioeconomic integration (2012-2013).
• FIERI also participates as an expert in Adapting European health systems to diversity.
• FIERI was partner of the project Science-Society Dialogues on Immigrant Integration in Europe (Diamint), funded by Volkswagenstiftung and aimed to assess how research–policy dialogues on immigrant integration have developed into much more complex science-society dialogues in the contemporary risk society. (2011-2013).
• Finally, FIERI has been designated by MPG (Migration Policy Group) as coordinator and responsible for the Italian part of the European Web Site on Integration.