Surveying Ukrainian Refugees in Europe: Implementation, Methods, Challenges, and Exchange of Experiences 1 |
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| Coordinator 1 | Dr Jean Philippe Décieux (Federal Institure for Population Research) |
| Coordinator 2 | Mrs Silvia Schwanhäuser (Institute for Employment Research) |
Since the start of the war in the Ukraine, many Ukrainians became internally displaced people or sought refuge in the surrounding European countries. So far, nearly 10 million border crossings from Ukraine have been registered and more than 6 million individual refugees from Ukraine were recorded across Europe (27 July 2022). This massive displacement and inflow of refugees within a short period of time generally poses a significant challenge for local and national politics, administration and society of the refuge giving countries. Hence, there is a need for appropriate empirical evidence, in order to take efficient actions, grant needed support, and helping effective social integration.
In response to this growing demand, a large number of survey projects have been initiated in Europe. These projects all face special circumstances and conditions: On the one hand, Ukrainian refugees constitute a hard-to-reach survey population that is only insufficiently represented within common sampling frames, as they are allowed for a visa-free entry within the EU states and temporary admission without asylum procedures. Moreover, they are often accommodated by friends or family in the destination country and are highly mobile within their first months of arrival. On the other hand, they form a highly-digitalized group and mostly own a (mobile-)device to proceed web surveys.
We would like to bring projects surveying Ukrainian refugees together for an exchange of their experiences and to discuss survey methodological and practical challenges. We particularly encourage submissions that offer a perspective on the following dimensions of survey research:
• Different sampling strategies and approaches
• Approaches to reach the target population
• Different survey Designs and Modes
• Questionnaire design and translation
• Fieldwork organization and monitoring
• Attrition, follow-up rules, and experiences in tracing respondents’ return or onward migration
• Innovative tracking techniques for longitudinal designs