The European Union is sponsoring an online survey to see how migrants are using new information and communications technologies.
Participants in the ‘15 Minutes Closer’ survey will be asked how they use the internet and mobile phones to talk with friends, to find information, to find jobs and participate in the local community and wider society.
As the title suggests, the survey will only take 15 minutes to complete, and one in every 10 respondents will receive 15 minutes of free phone calls as a reward.
The project is sponsored by the European Commission, and the information gathered will be used by the EU to help immigrant communities.
According to a spokesperson: “The European Commission sees new information and communications technologies as having great potential to help immigrant communities participate more fully in society, through improved learning, social life, and employment.”
In order to achieve this, the EU has funded ConnectIEM ¬– a research project focused on obtaining cross-country comparable data on ICT skills, access and usage of the main migration groups living in Austria, the Czech Republic, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, the Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom.
The ConnectIEM project will aid the fight against digital exclusion by exploring “the relationship between new technologies and integration processes of migrant populations, and to develop evidence-based policy recommendations” aimed at facilitating the participation of immigrant communities.
For anyone who is part of the immigrant community, the survey can be found at www.15minutescloser.com. Further information about the research is available at www.connectiem.net.
