Real-World Laboratory: Asylum Seekers

Goal and task

The Real-World Lab project in the Rhine-Neckar region is focused on identifying the factors necessary for the quickest possible social integration of asylum seekers in the towns of Heidelberg, Sinsheim and Wiesloch. In particular, the following factors,

• language acquisition
• professional training
• integration in the job market
• decentralised living
• civic engagement of members of the host community

are considered to play a significant role in successful integration.

Bürgerschaftliches Engagement und trisektorale Kooperationen

This sub-project (headed by the CSI) concerns the motivations behind civic engagement and the types of engagement undertaken by citizens and the associated organisations working in the fields of professional training and language proficiency, employability and social integration. Any trends and innovations will also be identified. Of particular interest is how informal and formal actors in the civic community work together and how they cooperate with state, and in particular municipal actors, as well as representatives from the private sector. In addition, the impact of such collaboration on usual forms and conceptions of local cooperation and governance will be investigated. In sub-project I, this is reflected in a focus on the tension between volunteer and official engagement. In sub-project II, investigation focuses on aspects of trisectoral cooperation. In sub-project III, new forms of civic engagement in individual areas are considered.

Further Information:

• More or Less Political: Findings on a Central Feature of Local Engagement for Refugees in Germany (Schmid, V., Evers, A. & Mildenberger, G. 2019)
• Transdisziplinäre Forschung auf dem Prüfstand. Einblicke in den Arbeitsalltag des Reallabors Asyl (Kück, S. & Schmid, V. 2019)
• Zentrale Ergebnisse zweiter Engagementbericht
• Phasen des Engagements