Integrating Immigrants in Europe: Research Policy Dialogues

Edited by Peter Scholten Han Entzinger Rinus Penninx Stijn Verbeek

This book is the outcome of a truly European exercise. It all started in May 2008 with a conference called ‘Research-Policy Dialogues on Migration and Integration in Europe’, held at the University of Twente, organised by Peter Scholten, the first editor of this book, who was based at Twente at the time, and Rinus Penninx. This conference was co-sponsored by the IMISCOE Research Network, and some of its contributors decided to continue their joint activities in this field in a special research group under the IMISCOE umbrella. They were all intrigued by the vast differences between European countries in the use of scientific knowledge in policymaking and in the patterns of communication between academic researchers and policymakers when it comes to analysing the impact of immigration and migrant integration. Peter Scholten and Rinus Penninx invited several speakers at the Twente conference to transform their paper into a book chapter. Updated versions of these chapters are included in the present volume. In addition to this, a research proposal was developed by some of the members of the research group. The proposal primarily aimed at gathering more empirical evidence on the functioning of the research-policy nexus in the field of immigrant integration in several EU countries as well as in the EU as such. The proposal was called ‘Science-Society Dialogues on Migration and Integration in Europe’, abbreviated DIAMINT. It was accepted for funding by the Volkswagen Foundation in Hanover under its programme ‘Science, the Public and Society’. The DIAMINT project was carried out between September 2011 and September 2013, under the supervision of Han Entzinger of Erasmus University Rotterdam, and Peter Scholten, who had moved meanwhile to that university. Stijn Verbeek, also at Erasmus University, contributed significantly to both the contents and the organisation of the project. The theoretical design of the present volume as well as most of its chapters constitutes the final report of the DIAMINT project. The project, and the IMISCOE Standing Committee of which the project was part, has also produced a considerable number of journal articles and other output, of which a list appears elsewhere in this book..

IMISCOE Research Series . Cham, SWIT: Springer Nature, 2015 341p.