Please find below the new press releases:

NORFACE grants for Dr. Marcel Lubbers and Prof. Dr. Frank van Tubergen

Dr. Marcel Lubbers and Prof. Dr. Frank van Tubergen have received grants for research proposals they had submitted within the NORFACE Transnational Research Programme. The research theme was “Migration in Europe – Social, Economic, Cultural and Policy Dynamics”. A total of 250 proposals were submitted, of which only twelve have been awarded grants.

Dr. Marcel Lubbers and Prof. Dr. Frank van Tubergen were both involved in the project, titled “Causes and Consequences of Early Socio-cultural Integration Processes Among New Immigrants in Europe”. The project concerns the setting up of large-scale panel studies among recent immigrants in four countries: the Netherlands (with co-researcher Dr. Mérove Gijsberts of the The Netherlands Institute for Social Research/SCP), Germany, Ireland and Great Britain. The obtained funds amounted to 3 million euros. Claudia Diehl of Göttingen University in Germany is the principle investigator of the project.

In addition, Prof. Dr. Frank van Tubergen is involved in another project titled “Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study in Four European Countries”. The aim of this research project is to gain a better understanding of the socio-cultural and economic integration of immigrant children in Europe. Panel studies will be conducted among children of immigrants in the Netherlands, Germany, Great Britain and Sweden. The sum of 4 million euros was allocated to this project.

Both projects are scheduled to start in September 2009 for a duration of four years.

Poster award for Anouk Smeekes, MSc.

Anouk Smeekes, a recent MERM graduate, has won the Best Poster Award for the 2nd year students during the Graduate School Poster Fair 2008-2009, organised by the Graduate School. The Poster Fair is a chance for students to learn and practise their skills at making posters. Students and lecturers alike, can also use this as a platform to exchange ideas and learn from each other. The Graduate School has received enthusiastic responses from the students and visitors.

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Promotion: Prof. Dr. Frank van Tubergen

As of 1 January 2009, ERCOMER researcher Dr. Frank van Tubergen is officially appointed as a professor at the Department of Sociology and the Department of Interdisciplinary Social Sciences. Professor van Tubergen, aged 32, is one of the young talents whose outstanding abilities is recognised by the university. His research theme is the integration of immigrants and their children in Western countries. Being a prolific writer, Prof. Dr. van Tubergen has (co-)authored more than 16 books, journal articles, chapters and edited books in the last 3 years. Needless to say, we have high expectations of this young researcher!

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Research assessments ERCOMER: OUTSTANDING!

In 2008, the Utrecht research programme of ERCOMER was evaluated twice by two different and independent international evaluation committees. One evaluation covered the period 2002-2006 and was part of a national comparative evaluation of 9 sociology and social science research programmes in the Netherlands. ERCOMER takes part in the programme ‘Social Networks, Solidarity, and Inequality’ of the Department of Sociology of Utrecht University. The second evaluation was for the period 2006-2008 in which the research of ERCOMER was assessed as one of the three separate programmes of the department of Interdisciplinary Social Science. In both research evaluations ERCOMER received maximum scores (of 5, on a scale from 1 through 5) on all the four criteria:quality (international recognition and innovative potential), productivity (scientific output), relevance (scientific and socio-economic impact), and viability (flexibility, management, and leadership). The international evaluation committees consider the research programme as ‘.. among the most prestigious in the Netherlands and abroad’ and are enthusiastic about the quality and viability of the ERCOMER research programme.