Are you interested in contributing to the design of a self-deposit solution for survey data focused on migration research? Over the next year, OPENMIN will be working with AUSSDA – the Austrian Social Science Data Archive – to develop a self-deposit archiving system for migration-related survey studies. We are seeking limited, semi-regular input from researchers familiar with FAIR data principles and GDPR-compliant data practices, who would be interested in using this service. If you would like to participate, please contact Dimitri Prandner, the PI at our Austrian project partner, the Johannes Kepler University Linz through email at dimitri.prandner@jku.at by November 10th, 2024. Please note that, due to capacity limits, we may not be able to accommodate all expressions of interest during this initial phase.

“Exchanges around the options and roadmap for setting up a European infrastructure on Ethnic and Migrant Minorities and Migration studies research and data”

During the IMISCOE 2024 annual conference in Lisbon, members of the project met with the migration studies research community to exchange ideas, discuss needs, and explore opportunities for collaboration around Open Science and Open Data initiatives in the fields of Ethnic and Migrant Minorities and Migration Studies. The discussion focused on the potential development of a future EU infrastructure for migration research and data. 

As a first step, a Task Force was established, bringing together volunteers committed to advancing these exchanges and exploring the creation of a recognized European infrastructure for migration research and data. The Task Force held its inaugural meeting in early November 2024, where members began preliminary discussions on the path forward. We will share further updates on the Task Force's work in the next newsletter.

If you or your institution manages a regularly updated dataset on migration policy indicators, a tool for analyzing migration flows, a metadata repository, recurring training on migration research methods, a recurrent survey, or a research hub that integrates multiple data sources into new datasets or visualizations (to give just some examples), you are already operating a research infrastructure. If you recognize your project, service, or tool in these examples, or believe it qualifies as a research infrastructure in the field, we strongly encourage you to stay connected for updates and reach out to the project coordinators at ethmigsurveydata@sciencespo.fr.

After a short break in the curation of new survey records, the EMM Survey Registry is back with updates and 102 new records, enhancing both its Ukrainian refugee and COVID-19 collections. Since June 2024, the OPENMIN team has ramped up efforts to expand the metadata collection, culminating in the release of version 2.0 in October 2024. The Registry now includes over 1,900 surveys from 34 countries and is on track to add an additional 100+ surveys within the next 3-4 months, potentially surpassing 2,000 surveys!

You can be part of this exciting milestone by contributing your metadata to the Registry! If you have produced survey data on COVID-19 (or its consequences) involving sizeable (sub)samples of EMM respondents (COVID-19 infosheets are available here in English, French and Spanish), a survey with Ukrainian or Syrian refugees or a survey with EMM populations more broadly, we invite you to contribute your survey metadata directly to the Registry. If you are interested in that, please follow the instructions provided on the EMM Survey Registry landing page.

Thank you for your continued support and please feel free to share this announcement within your networks.

Since March 2024, a new project called OPENMIN - "Consolidating Open Science and Data Initiatives on Ethnic and Migrant Minorities in Europe" - has emerged from the COST Action collaboration and network. Funded by the CHIST-ERA Open Science call and supported by several national funding agencies, OPENMIN brings together a consortium of researchers and technological experts from six European countries who collaborate to consolidate and expand a range of Open Science and Open Data initiatives that foster comparative knowledge generation and research capacities on Ethnic and Migrant Minorities and Migration Studies in Europe. In particular, the OPENMIN consortium consists of the following partners: Sciences Po (CEE), France (PI and consortium coordinator: Prof Laura Morales); the Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria (PI: Prof Dimitri Prandner); the University of Liège, Belgium (PI: Prof Jean-Michel Lafleur); the Kozminski University, Poland (PI: Prof Justyna Salamońska); the Youngminds company, Romania; and the University of Neuchâtel / nccr - on the move, Switzerland (PI: Prof Gianni D’Amato).

It will run for two years, from March 2024 to February 2026.OPENMIN builds on existing collaborations such as the ETHMIGSURVEYDATA,  IMISCOE and Nccr-on the move networks, and cross-fertilising initiatives of Open Science, including the Ethnic and Migrant Minorities (EMM) Survey Registry, the IMISCOE Migration Research Hub and the Swiss Nccr - on the move Migration-Mobility Survey data analysis and reuse tools, with the aim of generating European-wide infrastructures that make research and data focusing on migration findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable (FAIR).