SIforREF
Integrating Refugees in Society and the Labour Market Through Social Innovation

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SIforREF strives to make a difference in the lives of refugees in five central european cities

SIforREF addresses at least two main territorial challenges identified in the cooperation Programme: globalisation, economic development and social cohesion. Refugee and migration issues in fact Impacts the economic equilibrium and the social cohesion of our society. The refugee crisis of 2015 inevitably gave more evidence to strengths and weaknesses related to the challenges mentioned. Certain best practices revealed the existence of connected top-down and bottom up experiences, which contained participatory Elements. However, at the same time the crisis dramatically revealed weaknesses that can be contributed to a lack of skills and services as well as to the hostile socio-political climate. The project will develop tools for evaluating and designing social innovative practices and for improving the social innovation capacity of policies. It will also implement seven pilot actions to test these tools and design regional and transnational strategies.

To do so, the partnership will investigate and build on best practices and initiate a mutual learning process among central European regions, especially neighbourhood regions involved in the project.

Main objectives of the project:

Enhance existing refugee integration policies on the regional and local level.
To advocate for social innovative and inclusive measures becoming mainstream components in the policy-making process.
The creation of tools for the evaluation and design of social innovative practices and pilots that result in inclusive and sustainable practices.
Download PDF file about the project.

Statement of support from the Berlin Commissioner for Integration and Migration

Hello, My name is Katarina Niewiedzial and I am the commissioner for integration and migration of the Berlin senate in Germany. I am delighted to be part of this European project SIforRef - especially for two reasons: Firstly, I clearly stand for a strong common European policy, because this is the only way to tackle global issues. We can see this mainly by the topic of migration. I like the term: “Think global, act local”. I think it is important to involve the local level into the decision-making process. A good example for this is Interreg Central Europe, but also the European movement of Solidarity Cities.

Secondly, the project stands for direct cooperation of the administration with NGOs and the academia. Berlin is a diverse city with a very clear political message: we are very much committed to the participation and integration of all migrants from day one. I want the Berlin expertise to contribute to a liberal European migration policy. But, I also want to learn from other European countries and initiatives - with a common and positive spirit!

News&Events

News

Article on police violence and the push-back of refugees in Slovenia

The article is available in English and Slovenian.

News

Our project partners, Kulturno društvo Gmajna and ZRC SAZU wish to share with you a documentary film titled "Five Perspectives"

The film directed by Samer Arkawi, looks at the sadness, love, hope, success and welfare as experienced and narrated by five protagonists who migrated to Slovenia.

In the documentary, they share their experiences coming from four different countries of origin: Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan.

News

Dear Readers, Our September newsletter has just been published. Enjoy!

Newsletter №2

News

THE PANDEMIC HAS NOT STOPPED GOOD PRACTICES FOR The INTEGRATION of Refugees: THE SIFORREF PROJECT COORDINATED BY the University of Venice CA 'FOSCARI

More information here.

News

SIforREF has recently become a friend of the Social Innovation Academy

The team of the Social Innovation Academy, led by Limitless® links well-known transnational social innovation advocates and institutes.

News

Regularisation of irregular migrants

The process of “Regularisation of irregular migrants” is ongoing and has been extended to the 15 of August 2020.

Here you will find data, FAQ and opinions:

www.vita.it

www.avvocatodistrada.it

www.stranieriinitalia.it

News

News and events from Bologna Cares – July 2020

This article (in Italian) looks at artistic practices and migrants’ empowerment, from the organisation Bolognacares.

Here the link to the article: Performing Resistance: pratiche artistiche di resistenza alla politica di invisibilizzazione

Events

World Refugee Day 2020

Our project partner ASP Città di Bologna celebrated the 20th of June, World Refugee Day 2020.

It was a big event that took place online and live. More than 15.000 participants were involved online and with live concerts, talks, readings and a contest on the topic of “Never More Freezing”

Additional information:

www.sociale.regione.emilia-romagna.it

events

SIforREF Pilot Workshop in Berlin

10 migrant entrepreneur women came together to reflect on their own experiences of establishing their businesses in Berlin.

News

THE COVID-19 Updates in VIENNA

Updates about the COVID-19 pandemic in our partner city: Vienna

eVENTS

IMISCOE Conference 1-2 July 2020

Members of the SIforREF team will participate in the first IMISCOE online annual conference. The conference was originally scheduled to take place in Luxemberg, but was moved online due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

More information is here.

ONLINE DISCUSSIONS

THE NEEDS OF MIGRANTS DURING THE TIME OF
COVID-19

Two of our project partners: University of Venice Ca'Foscari and Centro Immigrazione Asilo e Cooperazione internazionale will participate on 13 May -15:00-17:00 in an online webinar about the needs of migrants in Italy during the Covid-19 pandemic.

More information is in facebook page.

News

Cancellation of transnational meeting from 14-15 May 2020 in Bologna

Due to the current situation concerning the challenge with Covid-19, SiforREF project partners have unanimously decided to cancel the upcoming meeting in Bologna.

We are currently discussing an alternative date as well as other viable possibilities to proceed with the project's research and dissemination timelines.

News

Submission to Horizont 2020

Berlin University of Technology along with several SIforREF project partners submitted a Horizon 2020 joint proposal in April 2020 that would continue the project's current research.

events

Meeting in Ljubljana

The second transnational meeting of the SiforREF team was held in Ljubljana from 5-6 November 2019. During these two days, all project partners from the five cities shared the findings of the project’s activities and outputs.

events

Co-creation workshops

Co-creative workshops with stakeholders, experts and refugees were organised and conducted during the month of October 2019 in Bologna, Parma, Vienna, Ljubljana and Berlin.

Events

Meeting in Budapest

The Communication Strategy Seminar was conducted 9-10 September 2019 in Budapest.

eVents

KICK-OFF MEETING

The Kick-Off meeting of the SIforREF project took place from 8-9 May 2019 at the University of Ca'Foscari in Venice, Italy. All project partners and associate partners met and spent two intense days discussing and planning the future of the project.

PROJECT NUMBERS

PROJECT PARTNERS

COUNTRIES

MILLION EURO ERDF

MILLION EURO
PROJECT BUDGET

PARTNERS VIDEos

Project SIforREF has 11 Partners from 4 central European countries, more information about partners.

Coping with COVID-19

In order to curtail the spread of the Covid -19 virus, many EU countries have imposed movement restrictions and even near or complete lock-down measures upon its citizens. But what does this mean for the refugee populations located in these spaces? In many cases such measures add further complications and difficulties to the lives of individuals that have already experienced trauma and forced displacement.

On this page the SiforREF project partners will devote information and stories about how the refugee populations and various organisations in their cities: Berlin, Bologna, Ljubljana, Parma and Vienna are finding solutions to deal with this pandemic.

WORKPACKAGES

WP 1.
SETTING UP A
TOOLBOX

In this work package we design a method (which includes defining specific indicators) for measuring the social innovative approaches of policies and pilots to foster the integration of refugees (this is the output). Since the evaluation of the impact of migration policies on the integration of refugees is rarely implemented, we believe that it is crucial to begin our project with the development of an evaluation tool.

WP2.
DEVELOPING A
TOOLBOX

This work package aims to develop a toolbox to support policy makers, practitioners and NGOs as operators in the design and implementation of measures for the integration of refugees on the level of societal and economic participation. We will examine measures which indeed adopt a social innovative approach. We have chosen not to provide top down guidelines, but instead to co-create open guidelines with a diverse pool of actors engaged in the issue of refugee integration.

WP3.
IMPLEMENTING, EVALUATING MEASURES

In this phase of the project we will test the toolbox developed in work package - where open guidelines have been produced on how to design social innovative approaches for integrating refugees. Furthermore, we will determine if these can be successfully translated into actual projects. The output of this WP is the implementation of 7 pilots: 2 in Italy (one in Bologna and one in Parma), 2 in Austria (both in Vienna), 2 in Germany (both in Berlin); 1 in Slovenia (Ljubljana).

WP4.
DEVELOPING A JOINT STRATEGY

During this phase we aim to achieve two main outputs: 1) Local agreements among key public and private actors. These agreements recognise the relevance of refugee integration for the promotion of social cohesion and have been conceived to jointly address this challenge through the practice of virtuous governance and social innovative approaches that were gained during the pilot activities. 2) A Transnational Memorandum of Understanding.

Documents

Workpackage 1: Setting up a toolbox

Workpackage 2: Developing a toolbox

Workpackage 3: Development of pilots

Workpackage 4: Developing a joint strategy

Best Practices

Here we would like to provide you with an overview of the best practices in regard to refugee integration within the cities/ territories of our partnership: Berlin, Bologna, Ljubljana, Parma, Vienna.