"RiUscire intended to take advantage of the multi/plurilingual and intercultural dimension of the prison context to turn it into a place of resources, empowerment and rehabilitation through integrated training courses addressed to foreign prisoners, prison staff and teachers working in prison. Starting from the coexistence of cultures and languages in a place of forced residence RiUscire aimed to:- Enhancing inherent multi/plurilingualism and cultural diversity in the prison context; - Promoting adult education in the prison context through intercultural communication; - Developing linguistic-cultural and linguistic-professional skills of detainees for the social and occupational reintegration;- Providing operators with the tools for a better understanding of the process of communication with foreign prisoners and to teachers with a teaching methodology designed to optimize the results of training courses for the target public (foreign prisoner). As called by the European Commission (Budapest 2010) on the promotion of best practices in prison, ""Pathways to Inclusion"", the present project at longer term, contributed to transforming the prison environment from a European point of exclusion and deprivation in place of enrichment and preparation for reintegration into society.To achieve these target groups, the project foresaw a partnership composed by five universities from five different European countries (Italy, Germany, France, Spain and Portugal) all of them with a large experience in second language teaching and/or teaching in prisons. The project also involved the Italian Institute for Penitentiary Studies (ISSP). RiUscire built a capital of social relationships with other key stakeholders such as: Prison administrations; Offices and organisations for the treatment and educational training of prisoners; organizations and universities that lead research inside of the prison context.RiUscire used a methodology based on a participative approach aiming to produce best practices addressed to meet the needs of disadvantaged groups (foreign prisoners) and those with which they are involved every day for their professional activities by managing linguistic and cultural diversity.In qualitative terms the expected results for foreign detainees provided an improvement of language skills, a greater chance of re-employment and eventual marketability of the skills acquired in the territory; a decrease of tension due to misunderstanding of events; the growth of self-esteem; the opportunity to participate in a pleasant and useful activity; the certification of linguistic and professional skills for social reintegration.For penitentiary staff, RiUscire provided an extension and upgrading of professional skills; improved interactions with detainees; a decrease of conflict situations and consequent stress; an increase of intercultural competence.For teachers, the project provided a to achieve a greater understanding of the socio-cultural backgrounds of foreign prisoners; a greater awareness and understanding of the interactive dynamics with foreign prisoners; an increase of intercultural competences; a study of L2 teaching approaches to this specific target public.At the quantitative level the results will be made of the documents produced by the network (working guidelines, analysis methods of socio-cultural aspects, reports of best practices) by online services (website), by the development and testing of methodologies (syllabi and teaching materials, training, assessment tools and evaluation) and by language professional portfolio (for inmates, prison workers and teachers).The penitentiaries involved will change their internal communication approach as a result of the project actions and benefit from a less confrontational atmosphere, more operational and really aimed at recovering. The foreign prisoners, as the direct beneficiaries of RiUscire, will be able to improve the situation of conflict due to misunderstandings of language and culture and will have the possibility of achieving an education at the same time promoting personal values and instrumental allowing the possibility to use the competences acquired during and after detention. The activities are: mapping of training activities conducted in contexts prisons of partner countries aimed at foreign inmates, L2 teachers and prison workers; development, implementation and validation of training activities of mediation and communication intercultural addressed to teachers and prison workers that provide a synergy of laboratories in the presence and use of new technologies (ICT) and OER; development, implementation and validation of training activities to skills linguistic and professional; definition of criteria for the evaluation and accreditation of interlinguistic and intercultural skills."

The significance of migration as a social, political and broader public concern has intensified significantly. Migration is increasingly seen as a high-priority policy issue by many governments, politicians and throughout the world. As well as migration projections and scenarios that are essential for appropriate planning and effective policymaking, a deeper understanding of the root causes and drivers of migration and of their interrelation with people’s propensity to migrate is needed. Enhancing migration data is a crucial step to advance migration governance since better data is needed in order to accomplish sustainable social and economic development and national migrant data strategies are required to inform good policies. The project’s overall objective is to improve understandings of changing nature of migration flows and the drivers of migration, to analyse patterns, motivations and new geographies. Moreover, HumMingBird aims to calculate population estimates and determine emerging trends and future trends and accordingly to identify possible future implications of today’s policy decisions. Correspondingly, migration scenarios will be developed in a more forward looking manner that takes into account both quantitative and qualitative perspectives of different migration actors that might have an impact people’s decisions to migrate and consequent trends that will have an impact on our societies. Global scenarios will base on not only a realistic understanding of the drivers and dynamics of migration but also on the effects and effectiveness of past migration policies. Projects ambitions are to identify the uncertainties and reappraise, to explore the reasons why migration predictions may not hold and to demonstrate non-traditional data sources for migration research.

see above