About the project

Our aim in this project is to improve the distribution and allocation process of asylum seekers and refugees from the federal states in Germany to the municipalities. With the help of an algorithm, we want to bring the characteristics and needs of those seeking protection and the existing structures and resources of the municipalities into closer alignment (“matching”). We will define the relevant criteria for this matching in a participatory and multi-stage process. This will allow us to include the interests of refugees and asylum seekers and take into account the structural conditions and individual characteristics of the municipalities and refugees involved.

In the project, the University of Hildesheim and the Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg work together with the responsible ministries of the federal states. The project has a planned duration of three years. During this time, we will identify relevant criteria of the host municipalities and refugees and we will develop and test a matching algorithm for the placement to selected municipalities. Our work throughout all stages of the project is and will be guided by ethical principles and data protection requirements.

The project will be evaluated scientifically to produce reliable results and develop recommendations for a broader implementation. In addition, we will publish our experience in the form of a policy brief and discuss the results with decision-makers at various levels of government. The project is funded by Stiftung Mercator.

Basic information about the project and how it differs from other matching projects is available here (in German only).

More detailed information about the project can be found in this contribution to the journal Informationsbrief Ausländerrecht (in German only).

Participating states and municipalities

Hesse

Groß-Gerau (district)
Hersfeld-Rotenburg (district)
Hochtaunuskreis (district)
Main-Taunus-Kreis (district)
The City of Darmstadt

Lower Saxony

Aurich (district)
Helmstedt (district)
Göttingen (district)
Region Hannover
Hanseatic City of Lüneburg

North Rhine-Westphalia

The City of Düsseldorf
The City of Krefeld
The City of Preußisch Oldendorf in the district Minden-Lübbecke
The City of Troisdorf in the district Rhein-Sieg-Kreis
The City of Wuppertal

Rhineland-Palatinate

Bernkastel-Wittlich (district)
Birkenfeld (district)
Cochem-Zell (district)
Donnersbergkreis (district)
The City of Kaiserslautern
The City of Koblenz
Mainz-Bingen (district)
The City of Pirmasens