The Austrian Academy of Sciences (OEAW) presently has over 770 members and about 1,450 employees dedicated to innovative basic research, the interdisciplinary exchange of knowledge and knowledge conveyance – with the goal to promote scientific as well as overall social progress. The members of the Academy confront important future-oriented questions in an animated cross-disciplinary exchange while offering advice to politics and society and informing the public about important scientific discoveries. Its commissions are dedicated to questions of high scientific and social relevance. The Academy operates 29 research institutes in the field of (non-application-specific) innovative basic research. It provides impulses by taking on future-oriented research topics and bears the responsibility for the preservation and interpretation of cultural heritage.
The Institute for Urban and Regional Research (ISR) at OEAW, is one of the leading institutes in the field of structural analysis of international migration, its demographic and societal consequences and the different paths of integration of the migrant population into the Austrian society in general and the urban social setting in particular. This is where RESPOND will be hosted for participant no 10. OEAw will lead WP 6“Conflicting Europeanization” (together with participant no. 2, GCU). OEAW will also be active throughout most other WPs in the project, e.g. WP 3 “Refugee protection regimes”, WP 4 on reception policies, practices and humanitarian responses and WP 5 “Integration policies, practices and responses”. The interdisciplinary team of ISR, composed by geographers, sociologists, anthropologists and political scientists brings a special and well-founded expertise in urban and regional research to RESPOND, along with a strong emphasis on diversity analyses, local integration analyses, urban housing market matters and studies of interethnic relations and social cohesion. These all are fields that are highly relevant for meeting the scientific requirements of the proposed research project. The ISR holds a special position within the Austrian research community and within the relevant stakeholders as it combines basic and applied research with long-standing expertise in cooperation with political decision-makers and urban practitioners in the fields of diversity, urban planning, sustainability and social cohesion issues. It is one of the leading institutes in Austria in the field of socio-spatial analyses of international immigration and integration related topics. Since the 1990s it has produced a large number of publications and research activities dealing with questions related to migration and the integration of immigrants. Until 2015, the research on migration, integration and diversity has primarily focused on labour migrants from within and outside the EU. This has changed with the recent influx of refugees from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Two new projects would complement the RESPOND project and create synergies in this area of research: (1) A qualitative study aims at identifying the main motivations for migrating to Austria and Vienna in particular, the further plans for employment and housing and the attitudes towards the urban society in the country of destination. The research partner in this project is foremost the Institute for Social Anthropology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. (2) Currently the ISR is also involved in a large quantitative survey (n=910), the first of this kind in Austria, focusing on value concepts and religiosity of recent refugees from the Middle East and Afghanistan. Planned and already partially financed is a longer term, qualitative panel study of refugees from Afghanistan in Vienna.
The ISR displays a vast experience in large projects and international cooperation, including EU-funded projects and projects funded by other sources, like JPI Urban Europe. Furthermore, the ISR has been andstill is an active member of the IMISCOE Research Network (“International Migration, Integration and Social Cohesion in Europe”, established as a Network of Excellence in the European Union's 6th Framework Programme) from the very beginning in 2004.
Ursula Reeger | Principal Investigator
Senior researcher at the Institute for Urban and Regional Research of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. She studied Geography with a focus on spatial research and regional planning and received her PhD in 1999. Her research interests include international migration (intra-EU mobility, forced migration), structural integration and urban development, interethnic relations on the local level as well as attitudes towards migration and their formation.
ursula.reeger@oeaw.ac.at
Ivan Josipovic
Junior researcher at the Institute for Urban and Regional Research of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Besides his studies of Socioeconomics, he graduated in Political Science with a master’s thesis on border politics in the EU Schengen zone. His fields of interest comprise border and migration regimes, asylum politics and their Europeanization as well as security politics related to the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice.
ivan.josipovic@oeaw.ac.at
Recent Blog Entries
by Jasmin Lilian Diab, Fouad M. Fouad | Global Health Institute, American University of Beirut
The Syrian civil war has displaced more than half of Syria’s population; within Syria for safety or to the neighboring countries to seek refuge. In the first two years of the Syria crisis, these countries; Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan, have opened their borders with no restrictions. The international humanitarian organizations and the international community have supported these states with the heavy burdens on their infrastructure.