The Challenges of Integration for Ukrainian Refugees: Designing an Interview Guide and a Questionnaire Survey.

Short-Term Scientific Mission Blog: Field Notes

Grantee name: Dr. Sergiu Gherghina

Details of the STSM:

Title: The Challenges of Integration for Ukrainian Refugees: Designing an Interview Guide and a Questionnaire Survey.

Start and end date: 26/08/2024 to 04/09/2024

Home Country: UK

Host Country: Italy

This STSM in August-September 2024 involved a research visit at University of Florence for Sergiu Gherghina, member in the WG3 of the Cost Action Hidden. The host researcher was Sorina Soare, a senior scholar with expertise in migrants’ integration. The main goal of the STSM visit was to elaborate a guide for semi-structured interviews and a survey questionnaire intended to map and explain the challenges faced by war refugees. The During the STSM visit, the two researchers also met two researchers from Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj who will be instrumental in conducting the interviews and fielding the survey.

The first days of the visit were devoted to desk research intended to identify the key concepts related to migration challenges and the factors that potentially drive these challenges. The two researchers discussed findings from several strands of literature that were divided between themselves in a online meeting organized several weeks before the visit. This was done to see what the main debates and the explored paths in the literature are. The two researchers brought together their notes and agreed on the main themes to be covered by the two instruments for data collection. They also identified several gaps in the literature and angles from which the challenges of war refugees can be approached.

Based on the findings from the literature, the visiting and the host researchers compiled in the fourth day a list of elements to be mapped with respect to migration / refugee challenges, and another list of potential causes for these challenges. These include the political and social opportunity structure. In addition, the researchers agreed to cover the social, economic and political challenges faced by the refugees. The result of the brainstorming is presented schematically in the brainmap below. The issues covered by the interview guide and questionnaire refer both to elements in the country of origin – left side of the graph – and elements from the country of residence – right side of the graph. Refugee integration is placed at the centre as the main variable to be explained. The potential explanatory variables include documentation, national identity, social network and the intention to return, human rights (including the right to work), discrimination and trust in institutions.

The first versions of the interview guide and survey questionnaire were finalised after one week and the last days of the STSM were devoted to presentation in front of different audiences with the goal of getting feedback. For data collection, the two researchers agreed to pilot it in Romania. The main reason behind the case selection is that Romania is a neighbour that provided help and assistance to many Ukrainian war refugees since February 2022. Hundreds of thousands of war refugees have either transited the country or settled in.

Overall, the STSM helped producing two valuable tools for data collection, which could be generally applicable to war refugees from other countries beyond Ukraine. The insights from this STSM visit are highly useful for developing a database with interviews and survey answers from war refugees, which will lead to research outputs in the near future.