UniteEurope: Project for the analysis of integration-related social media content kicked off successfully

To support policymakers in the optimal and sustainable integration of immigrants in European countries, UniteEurope will develop an analytics tool to extract integration-relevant content from social and online media discussions. The project thereby aims to facilitate a bottom-up approach in policy making and enable policymakers to consider the requirements of individuals, communities and organisations in their measures.

As migration movements and the integration of immigrants are highly important topics for all member states of the European Union, it is crucial to provide optimal guidance and support to policy makers and public administration. Therefore, the EU-funded project “UniteEurope: Social Media Analytics and Decision Support Tools Enabling Sustainable Integration Policies and Measures” aims to support local and pan-European policy makers in the sustainable integration of immigrants.

The project will be carried out within 36 months, starting in October 2011 and ending in September 2014, by a consortium consisting of nine partners from four European countries.

While policies are mostly being designed following a top-down approach, it is important to also include individuals, groups, communities, and organisations in the process of policy-making in the area of migrant integration, and thereby following a bottom-up rather than a top-down approach. To achieve this, UniteEurope will develop a social media analytics tool that will be able to extract content on the topic of integration from public social and online media ethically and scientifically validated. Thereby, the tool will allow policy makers to follow a bottom-up approach and consider the needs of relevant stakeholder groups. They will be able to monitor ongoing discussions about migrant integration issues by citizens, communities, and organisations, and take related actions based on those findings.

For the development of the UniteEurope tool, representatives of the potential target groups (i.e., policy makers, city administrators, NGOs, assistant and associate professors) will be included in the process from an early stage.

Main objectives

The main objectives of the UniteEurope project are the following:

• Identification of relevant workflows, key roles and technical systems in city administrations
• Elaboration of an integration issue grid model with multi-layer logic patterns
• Development of scalable and flexible social media monitoring and decision support tools
• Creation of web-based dashboards for policy makers with intuitive visualisations
• Supporting operational and strategic integration-based decisions and measures in cities
• Provision of aggregated data, key figures and good practices at European level

The Consortium

The project consortium of UniteEurope consists of nine partners from Austria, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden, who will connect their expertise in areas such as system architecture, software development, eGovernment, social media and integration for the development of the UniteEurope solution. UniteEurope will be coordinated by INSET Research & Advisory, SYNYO GmbH will act as the technical coordinator of the project. The other consortium members are Imooty, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Malmö University, University of Potsdam, City of Rotterdam, City of Malmö, and ZARA – Civil Courage & Anti Racism Work.

Keywords

Europe, Migration, Integration, Immigrants, Policy Makers, Public Administration, Social Media, Analytics Tool, Online Discussions, Citizens