Short profile
In 2016, the German Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs (BMAS) established the Funding Network Interdisciplinary Social Policy Research (FIS). In this way, the BMAS is pursuing the goal of strengthening independent social policy research. Scientists should be able to establish themselves in this field of knowledge, and the respective universities should be able to expand or create new structures in the field of social policy. To this end, the networking project links up with the activities of the FIS network as well as with the German Institute for Interdisciplinary Social Policy Research (DIFIS).
As part of the FIS network, the networking project "Paradigm Shift in the Migration Society" (NUPS) connects scholars in the knowledge field of migration specifically on two central topics in an interdisciplinary framework. They work on different subtopics and analyze them under the conditions of multiple crisis constellations. These subtopics are:
"Impact of climate change on migration"
"Technological developments, migration and the future of work".
The networking project Paradigm Shift integrates knowledge from the fields of practice, economics and civil society. The overarching goal of the project is to identify sociopolitical implications of Germany's transition to a migration society that have received little attention to date, to structure the existing knowledge and to process it scientifically. The task of the networking project is to initiate the development of research questions and contents beyond silos of thought and to generate new, in particular international, expertise.
In the course of the pre-conference process, two high-level, internationally staffed working groups were established to work on the above-mentioned topics. These working groups continue to exist.
The outputs of the two working groups were captured through research briefs, policy briefing notes and webinars.
Pre-Conference Process
A summary of the pre-conference process can be found here: clavis (2022)
The networking project Paradigm Shift cooperated closely with the organizing team of the BMAS-taskforce IMCB22 and thus supported the planning, organization and implementation of the 25th International Metropolis Conference, which took place from 04 to 09 September 2022 in Berlin (www.imcb22.de). The networking project took over the chair of the Plenary session on "Climate Change and Migration" during the conference.
PhD group and student papers
The Networking Project hosted the PhD forum of the Metropolitan Conference. This resulted in an independent PhD group.
Parallel to the conference process, master students of the Humboldt University as well as of the Technical University of Berlin had the opportunity to contribute their ideas about future research topics to the conference process by attending master events. They produced student papers, which can be accessed here: Publications
Databases and publications
The networking project has set up a database on the two topics
Publications are in the works. A special issue of the international peer-reviewed journal "Glocalism" is in the process of publication, and an anthology of the young scholars is in preparation.
A monthly internal newsletter of the networking project is published. This can be requested here: h.boahen@tu-berlin.de
In the coming months, the working groups will be expanded to include additional members, and the focus will also be on issues related to securing skilled workers. Research activities and bilateral cooperation in university teaching will be developed.
