By Aafke Brus, Radboud University Nijmegen

August 2014

6. Training and awards

A final category of IMISCOE’s activities involves training & awards. Both are oriented at promoting excellence in the field of migration and integration studies, at various career stages. Many activities focus at the level of PhD training, but there are also training activities and awards (the Rinus Penninx Award) that aim at more advanced stages of academic careers.

A key activity aimed at PhD training involves the organization of PhD conferences, or winter/summer schools. The first IMISCOE summer school was organized by Migrinter in Poitiers in 2006. Since then, these PhD schools have been evaluated so positively, that in some years (2008, 2009) there have even been two PhD schools in one year. Also when IMISCOE became a Research Network, the PhD conferences were continued. Every year the Board of Directors decides to allocate support to one of the IMISCOE member institutes for organizing an IMSICOE winter or summer school. Since 2006, 12 PhD conferences have been organized (see table 4). Currently, IMISCOE is exploring opportunities for the organization of a transatlantic PhD summer school in 2016.

Table 4: IMISCOE PhD conferences since 2006.

Furthermore, IMISCOE has also been at the foundation of several other initiatives related to PhD training and even education at the masters level. For instance, the INTEGRIM project was prepared in the context of the IMISCOE network, promoting the exchange of PhD students between IMISCOE’s partners. Furthermore, the IMISCOE training committee developed a proposal for a joint masters program with six IMISCOE partners. This led to a joint master in international migration and social cohesion (MISOCO) focusing on migration flows and social cohesion strategies.

Finally, IMISCOE has installed several awards to celebrate and promote excellence of research and publications in the field of migration and integration studies. In 2010 the Maria Ioannis Baganha Dissertation Award was installed. It was named after Maria Baganha, one of the founding members of IMISCOE, former chair of the Board of Directors and leading migration scholar at CES at the University of Coimbra, who passed away in June 2009. The award goes to the best PhD thesis defended in the two years preceding the award. The nominated PhD theses are evaluated by an independent MB award committee. The award includes a sum of 2500 euros and a full fee for Open Access publication in the IMISCOE research series.

Table 5: Winners of the IMISCOE Maria Baganha Dissertation Award, since 2010

The second award is the Rinus Penninx Best Paper Award, which was installed in 2014. This award honors the founding father of IMISCOE, Rinus Penninx. It is awarded to the best paper presented at the IMISCOE annual conference. The winner receives €750 and has the opportunity to publish the paper in Comparative Migration Studies. The first award went to a paper by Marie-Laurence Flahaux and Hein de Haas on “Migration from, to and within Africa: the role of development and states.” 

Finally, in 2014 IMISCOE also launched a PhD network. This involves a network of PhD’s from all over Europe working in the field of migration and integration studies. This network will be involved in determining IMISCOE’s strategies regarding PhD training, and will also contribute to the organization of specific events for this category at the IMISCOE annual conferences.

5. Events <<< 6. Training and awards >>> 7. Conclusion

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