Bridge for Researchers Going to Europe – Step II is a 28-month long EURAXESS project to support the long-term careers of 300 highly skilled refugee researchers and their integration into the labour markets of the European Union member states and its associated countries. It provides high quality guidance, mentoring and training for refugee researchers, especially postdocs and professors displaced for more than two years in Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, Austria, Switzerland, Germany and Sweden. BRiDGE II aims to meet their individual career planning needs by providing 300 career case plans, while activating and supporting 100 academic and 30 industrial mentors, along with EURAXESS network members. It provides four trainings, four webinars and two networking events for refugee researchers, two trainings and two networking events for academic and industrial mentors, and fitting webinars for them to enhance the quality of collaboration and increase the success rate of their mentorship. BRiDGE II launches four peer groups and provides 45 internships/months for refugee researchers. The project trains and involves additional EURAXESS staff members across the European Research Area and provides course materials, guidelines and tools for further public use. It supports dual career and gender equality measures, by introducing a quota and piloting a dual career study for refugee researchers. The project partners strive to anchor diversity as a positive value in society and fight prejudice and discrimination against minorities in academia and society. The long-term integration of refugees in the academic and non-academic labour markets is an important step towards achieving this and is beneficial to many facets of society. Finally, the project establishes an advisory board of experts and community representatives, which will in turn provide insights concerning this important societal change and makes this information available to the public for further analysis and conclusions.
