AIMS AND FRAMEWORK

The threefold objective of EUMS:

i) operating at the forefront of the current trend for multidisciplinary knowledge combining the humanities and the “hard” sciences; ii) delivering research outcomes, educational qualification and consulting services in the field of migration to academics, students, professional and volunteer practitioners, NGO leaders and members, to generate mutual dialogue and innovation in research, good practice and policy-making; iii) fulfilling the mission of inspiring and raising the quality of research, debate and actions towards inclusion/integration in the civil society throughout Europe.

I. TEACHING

While keeping our distinctive core in economics, we are enhancing our interdisciplinary approach for a full appreciation of the local, national and international features of migration throughout Europe.

The core components:

- ECMEU, the primary core course on the Economics of Migration in Europe, combining demography and economics. Focus on the economic causes and effects of migration in Europe, integrated by LabMIDA, the Laboratory on Migration Data and LabER, the Laboratory on Econometric results, for a statistical approach;

- EULMM, the complementary core course on Economics and Management of European Human Resources, focussed on intra- and extra-EU labor market mobility, its management and effects.

Three satellite seminars, addressing a new topic each year, for insights from Cultural Economy, Anthropology, Psychology, Geography, Law and Political Science:

• CUCOMINT, Cultural Consumption as a driver of Migrant Integration. Analyses of the motivation for consumption of cultural goods by migrants, contributions from Cultural Economy, Anthropology and Social Psychology; This seminar was done for 3 years in the row and has been innovated each year;
• MINEU, Migration in the Neighbourhood of Europe. Focus on the dynamics of international flows, contributions from Jean Monnet Chairs and Centres of Excellence;
• DREUFARE, Drivers of EU Family Reunification. Focus on family reunification and the need to favour family member integration, contributions from Comparative family law and Islamic law.

Two annual events, addressing international/academic audiences and civil society respectively, promoting visibility of research results/feedback from practitioners and establishing a permanent observatory.

II. OUTREACH ACTIVITIES

The academic conferences, round table debates and workshops on specific issues with local institution representatives and volunteer groups investigate their needs as “situated participants”. These events, constantly connected with Europe Direct and the Jean Monnet Module CoEUR, are accessible on streaming media.

The special units

- DAU, Project Design and Impact Assessment Evaluation Unit, with the statistics department;

- LCU, Legal Consultancy Unit, with the Human Rights and Migration Law Clinic, to support institutions working at local level.

A more permanent link with the local community is provided by exploring the legal issues related to: a) family reunification; b) the role played by private and public institution in promoting the integration of unaccompanied foreign minors; c) the migrants’ access to decent work and social protection. The goal is to offer practical guidance and to provide materials for application by local and national actors, through a learning-by-doing approach aimed at increasing awareness of work-related rights, benefits and duties both of the migrants and the stakeholders.

Through invited lectures, round tables and meetings, these components are designed to bridge academic content with fieldwork experience, improving the human capital of practitioners and journalists and helping the associations in carrying out their complex and demanding tasks. Researchers & teachers deliver educational and consulting services; practitioners contribute feedback on their field experience: a permanent relationship between the Chair members and the local community that will continue after the termination of the project, generating a permanent hub on Migration Studies.

The activities originally envisaged for a Winter School were actually incorporated and performed in the satellite seminars and special units. 

The student internships

at local institutions (e.g. Public Administration, Prefettura, National Courts, Questura, Charities, NGOs) provide support on legal, economic and statistical matters for the improvement of advocacy strategies and intercultural competence in local migrant integration programmes.

Satellite events and “edutainment” opportunities

Scholarly contributions, student internships and events targeting a broader scene, from conferences to “edutainment” opportunities, offer methodological/procedural know-how. This cooperative configuration embeds and valorises the work of practitioners, inspiring policies, attracting civil society leaders and promoting a larger community of professionals as well as volunteers, reaching social actors in a variety of domains, from legal and business management to social work.

The International Festival of Economics (first and second edition), an initiative held in Turin and open to the general public, has been recording massive popular response especially amongst young adults. In both editions of the festival, a number of events issuing from the programme of the Jean Monnet Chair and originally planned for an academic audience became spinoffs included in the festival's programme. 

The methodology

The didactic framework is proactive and participation-based, with contributions from outstanding scholars and constant student involvement in tasks such as reporting, writing, debating, finding and organizing data to corroborate their presentations. Paramount for student training is a 3-6 month internship with a local community dealing with the problematic of migrants and leading to dissertation writing.

Learners – whether they be university students, civil servants or representatives of public/private institutions – come to understand the relevance, so often neglected in the press and social media, of the European dimension in labour market decisions. By approaching a broad set of disciplines beyond economics, e.g. anthropology, social psychology, demography, Islamic Laws, learners are led to apply an in-depth understanding of the disciplinary complexity of migration and prepared to provide realistic, well-informed and well-formed contributions.

III. DISSEMINATION AND MONITORING

Student internships and dissertations are the prime vectors of dissemination and of extra moenia dialogue. Their remarkable results, e.g. in education, with teachers from all school levels asking to promote knowledge of migration issues, are amplifying our experience with “Europe Direct Dialogue” and FRIDA-UNITO.

Local, national and transnational cooperation initiatives and events deploy electronic dissemination tools - the chair’s website, digital teaching materials and products (e.g. videos of outreach events and of pedagogic scenarios for elaborating and debating policy guidelines), e-Newsletters - and traditional print media.

Continuous monitoring of the quality and outreach capacity of the project is carried out through:

a) students’ evaluation of courses and seminars; b) size of virtual and actual audiences; c) public resonance of our work in the press and social media; d) contacts with other academic and non-academic institutions in the field; e) further indicators developing all along, such as e.g. number of visualizations.