Press conference (Portorož, January 2019)

The Science and Research Center Koper set up a press conference in Potorož, Slovenia, where it held a three-day kick-off meeting to launch the MiCreate project. Prof. dr. József Györkös, director of Slovenian Research Agency, prof dr. Rado Pišot, head of the Science and research Centre Koper, dr. Mateja Sedmak, the project coordinator and dr. Barbara Gornik, the project co-coordinator were available for questions from the press.

At the press conference, the speakers emphasized the unique scientific achievement of Science and Research Centre Koper, evident especially in the fact that MiCreate is the first project in the field of social sciences within the Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation program, in which the Slovenian research institute acts as a leading partner.

Project leaders explained that their study, which deals with integration of immigrant children into host societies from the perspective of children, will take place in elementary and secondary schools, migrant centers and asylum homes in Slovenia, Austria, Spain, Great Britain, Denmark, Poland, Italy, France, Greece and Turkey. As they highlighted, special attention will be devoted to promoting the integration capacity of the education system, peer groups and local communities and designing recommendations for legislative changes and policy measures.

Coordinators explained that they will develop diverse (computer-assisted) applications and guides for pedagogues, migrant and local children with the aim of promoting inclusion, multicultural coexistence and dialogue. In addition to teachers, children and local communities, they also want to address the political sphere at the level of individual countries and the European Union to make a difference and accomplish concrete effects.