CO-CREATING ICT SOLUTIONS TO AID MIGRANT INTEGRATION: LESSONS LEARNED FROM THE H2020 MIICT1 PROJECT

Abstract

This paper presents the results of the prestigious Horizon 2020 MIICT: ICT-enabled services for migration innovation project. The project was conducted by a multidisciplinary team of technical developers, social scientists, lawyers, practitioners, and migration experts in three pilot countries of Cyprus, Spain, and Italy. The project focused on deepening societal understanding of the factors that impact upon refugee and migrant populations' ability to access key public services and subsequently created an ICT solution to solve these problems. The project deployed a co-creation methodology, which proved essential when designing ICT solutions to aid migrant integration, enabling researchers to involve both the migrants and those assisting them in their migration journeys, namely NGOs and service providers in the study as co-researchers. The researchers, together with the participants co-designed a multilingual, intuitive, inclusive, interactive platform called IMMERSE that catered for the real needs of migrants, asylum seekers and refugees. The innovative co-creation methodology deployed empowered migrants to be proactive and independent in their migration journeys and the resulting interactive platform created provides vital access to information and services like health, language, housing, employment, education, and legal assistance in a one-stop-shop design. This paper further highlights the lessons learned from the research, concerning the need for digital training courses to be implemented to overcome the digital divide and the inclusion of extensive legal and ethical protocols in migrant languages, to be integrated into the platform to counteract migrants' fears of digital surveillance and create confidence and wider usage of the ICT platform.