BRiDGE – Bridge for Researchers in Danger Going to Europe enhanced the support of more than 300 refugee researchers (RR) during the 24 project months, with special attention paid to early and late stage post doc researchers and professors of all ages, especially those located in Germany, Switzerland, Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey. The case-to-case support focused on career development advisory services, training, and academic and non-academic mentoring for the RRs. The project transfered the given knowledge and experience to the EURAXESS network, the largest relevant network in Europe.
BRiDGE one: From South East Europe to its heart gave an all-in-one solution for the localized guidance of RRs in the European Research Area (ERA) and enabled its 40 EURAXESS country members in the ERA to seize the unique chance they have to identify and utilise the potential of RRs across Europe.
BRiDGE two: From displaced to integrated helped guide more than RRs in the restarting of their career, and provided instructive and motivating materials to academic and non-academic mentors, mainly in form of a handbook (vlog), including interviews of RRs and academic Mentors from Greece and Germany.
BRiDGE three: From asylum to research involved and supported more than 60 academic mentors for RRs, trained more than 100 RRs to be orientated within the ERA and use the provided resources.
BRiDGE four: From individual cases to systematic policy recommendations promoted the best practices in the EURAXESS network through trainings and activities, and forms a network and pool of experts visible on the EURAXESS Science4Refugees site. BRiDGE also stood for a strengthened quality assurance method.
BRiDGE enabled RRs in conclusion to establish relationships with potential colleagues and supervisors, to improve their own situation, skills and experience, and to estimate their professional perspectives, and therefore, tackles the core challenges for integration in a new productive environment and inclusion into the European societies.
The Project targeted the challenge to enable RRs who have been granted an asylum related residence permit in a European country to continue their research career path and enter the labour market after the gap caused by their uprooting. This project came timely, as with the introduction of new asylum and immigration laws in several European countries, such as Germany and Greece, where refugees and their spouses gained access to employment with their asylum related residence permits and thus, it was more than urgent to find solutions especially for the sudden rise in the amount of highly skilled unemployed citizens and residents, as the RRs. The situation of the conditional and therefore temporary asylum seekers in Turkey had left an even bigger question mark, where and how these refugees will have to be integrated. Therefore, all proposed measures for refugee researchers in the involved countries increased their overall employability and gave solutions for the future of the European societies.
