Ethics Report: Qualitative Fieldwork
“Lived experiences of migration”

Contents

1	Aims and objectives of the report
2	Ethical issues in the qualitative fieldwork
2.1	Ethical approval and authorization of the fieldwork in each country
2.2	Identification and recruitment of research participants
2.3	Informing and securing consent
2.4	Safeguarding the privacy of the participants
3	Appendices
3.1	Letter for informed consent of experts in recruiting agencies
3.2	Letter for informed consent of prospective migrants
3.3	Letter for informed consent of actual migrants

1	Aims and objectives of the report
This Deliverable 4.1 aims to identify the specific ethical issues and requirements for the qualitative fieldwork in Work Package 4 which need appropriate consideration. It aims to design adequate measures for protecting research participants before the start of the fieldwork. The report builds upon GEMM Consolidated plan for ethics clearance (D1.6), Data management plan (D1.4) and POPD (D7.3), developed in accordance with the ethical standards and guidelines of Horizon2020 research program.
Work Package 4 “Lived experiences of migration” involves gathering qualitative information about mobility in Europe as a complex and dynamic process. It focuses on the individual motivations, expectations and aspirations of migrants before and after the relocation in a foreign country, evaluations of the receiving context, and formal and informal interactions with a variety of institutions. The methodology includes in-depth interviews with both potential and actual migrants and semi-structured interviews with experts from recruiting agencies. In total 160 interviews with prospective and existent migrants and 40 expert interviews will be conducted within this Work Package. The fieldwork will be carried out in six partner countries representing significantly different national contexts: Bulgaria and Romania as countries predominantly sending migrants to other European countries, Italy and Spain as countries that are both receiving and sending migrants and Germany and the UK as mainly receiving countries. Our project as a whole and the proposed fieldwork in WP4 are complex but we have ensured that all partners from those countries are aware and comply with the same rigorous ethic requirements.

2	Ethical issues in the qualitative fieldwork
We have identified two main sets of ethical issues that the project team needs to address:
-	to establish a common ground for elaborating the criteria for sample composition and the procedures for identifying the research participants; and
-	to develop procedures for informing, securing consent and safeguarding the privacy of the participants, including instructions for designing ethics documents which the participating teams will use in the course of fieldwork and the rules for data protection at all stages of the fieldwork.
In what follows we explain in more detail the procedures through which we deal with the above ethical concerns.

2.1	Ethical approval and authorization of the fieldwork in each country
Each research team has applied for ethical approval through their university or an equivalent institution meeting the authorization requirements. All copies of the confirmations for the ethical approval of the research will be submitted via the Participant Portal prior to the start of the fieldwork.

2.2	Identification and recruitment of research participants
There are two main groups of research participants in the study ‘Lived Experiences of Migration’ with different social status and relation to the research objectives: migrants and experts. The design of the migrants’ sample is based upon the following criteria: stages in the migration process, gender and skill levels. The research requires that the country teams of Bulgaria, Romania, Italy and Spain each conduct 36 interviews with both prospective and existent migrants balancing gender and focusing on sectors within which migrants of different skill levels are concentrated: 
-	Highly-skilled (Computer Science, Banking, Health Care);
-	Medium and Vocational Qualifications – Accountants (lower grade) and Electricians,
-	Unskilled: Hospitality, Domestic Work, Construction, and Agriculture. 
The research teams in the UK and Germany each carry out 8 interviews with highly qualified non-EU migrants from China and the USA.
The criteria for selecting respondents for the experts’ sample concern the type of agency they work for: state and private and the level on which they operate: international, national and local. The sample design aims at achieving maximum diversity.
The method for identifying interviewees is the so called snowball sampling (‘Respondent driven sampling method’). We would start with recruiting prospective migrants from the participants in Career Fairs (e.g. IMS Recruitment and Ejobs Expo; EURES Career Fair and others). From then on we will ask for contact with other potential interviewees who might as well rely on using social ties for their migration. As these public events are attended by state and private agencies we will recruit experts there as well and call for suggestions for interviewees from other agencies. The fieldwork will also benefit from the local knowledge of the national teams and their contacts with the Labour Offices to achieve representativeness. Within the existent migrants’ sample, we distinguish between recent entrants and well-established migrants. Contact to these will be sought through different country societies abroad such as the Bulgarian City Club (London); Romanian City Alliance (London); Italiani a Berlino, Italiani a Londra). They act both as gatekeepers and sources of advice for newly arriving migrants. In order to diversify the samples, we will contact also Citizen’s Advice Bureaus and professional organizations which organize networking events for foreign-born staff, such as British Medical Association (BMA). 
Research participants will be selected equitably to meet the above criteria and there will be no pressure to recruit specific individuals. Trained interviewers – members of the country research teams - will conduct the interviews in the national languages and follow research ethics, declaring no conflict of interest in the selection of interviewees and protecting the rights of the interviewed subjects. 

2.3	Informing and securing consent 
Before interviewing migrants and experts, we will inform the potential participants about the objectives of the study, its methodology and ways of utilization of results. All research teams create their own forms for getting informed consent providing the same basic information. They have to contain the following points:

-	Short description of the work package and its place within the wider project
-	Short description of the selection of participants and the procedure of the interview
-	Notification that the interviews will be recorded
-	Lack of obligation to participate and right to withdraw at any point
-	Methods of anonymization of the data and methods of storage in a data archive
-	Rules for data use in this project in the forms of reports and publications and for future research on specific terms and conditions by other researchers.

The signed letters of informed consent will be kept in a secure place by each research team and separated from the audio recordings and the transcribed interviews.

Our interviewees are not minors and we expect that they will understand the procedures and possible consequences of the interviews. If we see that anyone is not capable of understanding the letter and the oral explanations, we will exclude them from the fieldwork.

The two groups of interviewees – migrants and experts – are not particularly vulnerable groups. We are fully aware that social vulnerability is a multifaceted phenomenon. In some cases, the interview may touch upon sensitive issues, for example experiences of discrimination and humiliation, and researchers are warned not to contribute to inducing anxiety or stress and avoid exacerbating inequalities by their own language. Treated carefully and respecting interviewee’s dignity, such issues will not be excluded from the research as its objectives are to fully understand the barriers in front of the successful social integration of migrants.

2.4	Safeguarding the privacy of the participants
In the interviews we collect information about individual characteristics and family situation before and after migration, sources of support, experiences of communication with the majority population, future life plans. This is personal information which has to be treated with adequate care to ensure anonymity. During the project the data is stored and backed-up on secure and password-protected servers at the partner institutions. Any information traceable to a specific address or date that would allow the interviewee to be identified will be removed or highly aggregated so that identification is impossible. 
After anonymization all data will be stored for secondary analyses in an internationally comparable dataset and codebook. This information is contained in the letter of informed consent which will be signed by each interviewee. All collected data will be deposited in relevant data archives of the countries in which the data were collected and ethical permission was obtained. Where relevant data archives are not yet available, as in Bulgaria at the time of writing, we will store the data in the UK Data Archive. Data will be stored in accordance with the requirements of the Data Protection Acts in individual countries and in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998 if stored by the coordination institution of Essex. These procedures comply with the EU legislation. The rules ensuring privacy and confidentiality extend to dissemination and communication activities during the whole project and after its duration, so that any publication, such as reports, journal articles and books, including publications on the internet, neither directly nor indirectly leads to a breach of anonymity.

3	Appendices
3.1	Letter for informed consent of experts in recruiting agencies
(This is an English version of the letter in the four sending-migrants countries which will be delivered to the potential participants in their mother language with adjustments concerning the names of countries and contact details of the responsible researcher. The first page with information about the project stays with the interviewed expert, the second page contains the name and signature of the interviewed expert which should be taken by the interviewer. This text should be deleted when translated).
You are invited to take part in an interview for the research project named “Growth, Equal Opportunities, Migration & Markets (GEMM)”,  founded by the European Commission under the HORIZON 2020 programme, SSH Work Programmes 2014/2015, Call: EURO-2-2014: the European growth agenda Research and Innovation action 4: Migration, prosperity and growth. We are studying the process of migration in Europe with the aim to understand why people make decisions about migrating and how the destination is chosen. Other teams in [names of the other three countries] are also carrying out interviews with migrants and experts from recruiting agencies. Emigration is really important and sometimes contentious. Yet, the channels for recruiting migrant workforce, the reasons for choosing a particular country, the sources of support the migrants rely upon and the difficulties they meet in the migration process are rarely considered.  
We hope to learn from your experience of an expert working with potential migrants about their motivations, needs and expectations and how and to what extent these are met by the existing institutional provisions and we will use this to inform the European Commission and other policy-makers. We would like to interview you and record the conversation. Please know that you are under no obligation to participate and you can withdraw at any point. You do not have to provide a reason for withdrawal. 
These interviews, together with data from other countries, will inform the writing of academic peer-reviewed articles, briefings and reports. We might use excerpts of your interview and publish them. This interview will always be anonymised and treated as confidential, meaning we will not use your name or report other characteristics through which you can be identified. All information you provide is confidential. We will transcribe the interviews, make sure there is nothing in them that can lead to you being recognised (as a matter of principle we will change names, and report broad occupations without specifics), and then store the interviews securely in a data repository at the UK Data Archive. This means that only researchers who are known and agree to treat the data confidentially can access the transcribed and anonymised interviews. 
More information on the project can be found on gemm2020.eu, this is also where we will upload our latest findings. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us. You can reach us through email [e-mail address of the country team] or call at [phone number of the team]. You can also write to: [Name and address of the research team].

AGREEMENT

I read and understood the objectives and procedures of my participation in the research, as well as the ways its results will be used. Hereby I declare my voluntary agreement to take part in the project.

Name and signature of the interviewee……………………………………………………

Date:…………………………………….

Name and signature of the interviewer………………………………………………………

3.2	Letter for informed consent of prospective migrants

(This is an English version of the letter to be used in the four migrant sending countries which will be delivered to the potential participants in their mother language. The first page with information about the project stays with the interviewed expert, the second page contains the name and signature of the interviewed expert which should be taken by the interviewer. This text should be deleted when translated).
You are invited to take part in an interview for the research project named “Growth, Equal Opportunities, Migration & Markets (GEMM)”,  founded by the European Commission under the HORIZON 2020 programme, SSH Work Programmes 2014/2015, Call: EURO-2-2014: the European growth agenda Research and Innovation action 4: Migration, prosperity and growth. We are studying the process of migration in Europe with the aim to understand why we make decisions about migrating and how the destination is chosen. Other teams in [names of the other three countries] are also carrying out interviews with people who intend to go to work and live in another country. Emigration is really important and sometimes contentious. Yet, emigrants themselves, their reasons for choosing a particular country, their hopes and worries are rarely considered. 
We hope to learn about your intentions to move to another European country, your motivation and expectations. We would like to interview you and record the conversation. Please know that you are under no obligation to participate and you can withdraw at any point. You do not have to provide a reason for withdrawal. These interviews, together with data from other countries, will inform the writing of academic peer-reviewed articles, reports, policy briefings and recommendations. We might use excerpts of your interview and publish them. This interview will always be anonymised and treated as confidential, meaning we will not use your name or report other characteristics through which you can be identified. 
All information you provide is confidential. We will transcribe the interviews, make sure there is nothing in them that can lead to you being recognised (as a matter of principle we will change names, and report broad occupations and industries without specifics), and then store the interviews securely in a data repository at the UK Data Archive. This means that only researchers who are known and agree to treat the data confidentially can access the transcribed and anonymised interviews. 
More information on the project can be found on gemm2020.eu, this is also where we will upload our latest findings. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us. You can reach us through email [e-mail address of the country team] or call at [phone number of the team]. You can also write to: [Name and address of the research team].

AGREEMENT

I read and understood the objectives and procedures of my participation in the research, as well as the ways its results will be used. Hereby I declare my voluntary agreement to take part in the project.

Name and signature of the interviewee……………………………………………………

Date:…………………………………….

Name and signature of the interviewer………………………………………………………

3.3	Letter for informed consent of actual migrants

(This is an English version of the letter to be used in the six migrant receiving countries which will be delivered to the potential participants in their mother language. The first page with information about the project stays with the interviewed migrant, the second page which contains the name and signature of the interviewed expert should be taken by the interviewer. This text in italics should be deleted when translated).
You are invited to take part in an interview for the research project named “Growth, Equal Opportunities, Migration & Markets (GEMM)”,  founded by the European Commission under the HORIZON 2020 programme, SSH Work Programmes 2014/2015, Call: EURO-2-2014: the European growth agenda Research and Innovation action 4: Migration, prosperity and growth.
We are studying the experiences of migrants in Europe to understand why we make decisions about migrating and how the destination is chosen. These interviews are part of a larger project which is funded by the European Union. Other teams in [names of the other five countries], are also carrying out interviews. Immigration is really important and sometimes contentious. Yet, immigrants themselves, their reasons for choosing this country, and how they feel, work and live are rarely considered. 
We hope to learn about your experiences as a migrant here in [name of host country] and will use this to inform the European Commission and other policy-makers. We would like to interview you and record the conversation. Please know that you are under no obligation to participate and you can withdraw at any point. You do not have to provide a reason for withdrawal. These interviews, together with data from other countries, will inform the writing of academic peer-reviewed articles, briefings and reports. We might use excerpts of your interview and publish them. This interview will always be anonymised and treated as confidential, meaning we will not use your name or report other characteristics through which you can be identified. 
All information you provide is confidential. We will transcribe the interviews, make sure there is nothing in them that can lead to you being recognised (as a matter of principle we will change names, and report broad occupations and industries without specifics), and then store the interviews securely in a data repository at the UK Data Archive. This means that only researchers who are known and agree to treat the data confidentially can access the transcribed and anonymised interviews. 
More information on the project can be found on gemm2020.eu, this is also where we will upload our latest findings. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us. You can reach us through email [e-mail address of the country team] or call at [phone number of the team]. You can also write to: [Name and address of the research team].

AGREEMENT

I read and understood the objectives and procedures of my participation in the research, as well as the ways its results will be used. Hereby I declare my voluntary agreement to take part in the project.

Name and signature of the interviewee……………………………………………………

Date:…………………………………….

Name and signature of the interviewer………………………………………………………