Over the past decade IMISCOE has provided seed money to selected research initiatives.
It has issued consecutive calls for new research initiatives. The aim of these initiatives is to mobilize colleagues in order to explore possibilities of enhancing new research (by developing research proposals), of joint publications or other activities around specific topics as well as the establishment of Standing Committees for more long term research initiatives.
IMISCOE distinguishes between Standing Committees and Research Initiatives. Standing Committees, that cover significant topics within migration studies, are structurally supported by IMISCOE. Research Initiatives are more bottom-up initiatives, and are (financially) supported for one year. Every year the IMISCOE network has a fixed sum available for seed funding. The funding is distributed to the fixed number of Standing Committees, and a varying number of research initiatives. The annual call for research initiatives is based in the following criteria:
- (Scientific) quality of the proposal/initiative.
- Embedding within IMISCOE (has significant support been generated within IMISCOE to work on the initiative?).
- Concrete plans in terms of developing new research proposals (such as proposals for Horizon 2020, EIF, ERF, ESF, etc.) or new publication initiatives (provide a concrete roadmap to a book or special issue).
- Concrete plans for one or more panels at the upcoming IMISCOE conference in Madrid.
- Priority may be given to initiatives that fill gaps in research done within or supported by IMISCOE and that identify new research niches in migration studies.
- Co-funding by other institutions than IMISCOE is promoted and taken as a positive factor in the evaluation.
- What has been achieved in the past year and how the allocated funds have been used;
- The (revised) long term goals of the Research Initiatives and the concrete activities planned for the next year (and for the use of the allocation).