Evidence on migrants' integration in Europe

From the Introduction. This report summarizes the main outcomes of a multidisciplinary study carried out from September 2013 to March 2015 by a group of forty researchers from different disciplines (7) and countries (10). The project Knowledge for Integration Governance (KING) was co-funded by the European Commission DG Home Affairs and its activities have been steered by the Ismu Foundation with the aim to feed the debate on integration governance and provide knowledge on the state of play of migrant inclusion throughout the European Union. To ensure the study’s comprehensiveness seven disciplines were involved: demography, economics, political science, social science, applied social studies, public administration and European policy. This different expertise deepened the research through utilizing various perspectives. Notably, the inclusion of public administrators in the research team provided insights on the importance of the policy vision. An analytical and prescriptive combined approach was used. Therefore, moving from the Common Basic Principles on migrants’ integration KING’s frame is partly shaped on the heuristic model of R. Penninx. This model analyses integration as it occurs in three dimensions (legal-political, socio-economic, cultural-religious) taking into account migrants’ and receiving societies’ role and position at institutional, collective and individual levels. By looking at these dimensions, KING provides evidence on integration processes and policies useful to provide recommendations for a better implementation of the Common Basic Principles of migrants' integration.