Austrian Integration Fund hands out research award for scientific projects on the challenges of integration: MCI graduate Claudia Mauracher convinces the jury with her thesisOn November 22, the Austrian Integration Fund handed out the 2017 Integration Research Award. The jury had assessed 170 submissions in total and selected Claudia Mauracher, graduate of the MCI Bachelor’s program in Nonprofit, Social & Health Care Management, as the winner in the bachelor category. Her thesis on the topic of “Voluntary work with refugees and asylum seekers” convinced in every way.In her thesis, Claudia Mauracher discusses the role of voluntary service in the context of migration and asylum, both from a theoretical and empirical perspective. The paper explores political, organizational, and personal strategies to meet the challenges faced by volunteers. A particular focus is placed on the current situation in Tyrol. Mauracher thus succeeds in identifying several structures and conditions of professional and voluntary work by which people’s willingness to volunteer can be furthered and secured for the future.Mauracher’s thesis advisors Nils Mevenkamp and Margit Schäfer, both lecturers at MCI, are delighted: “Miss Mauracher’s Bachelor’s thesis excels both in form and content. She has indeed managed to create a brilliant basis for voluntary work in the context of migration and asylum.”Since 2005, the Austrian Integration Fund has awarded Bachelor’s, Master’s and diploma theses, as well as dissertations providing new perspectives on and research approaches to the issues of migration and integration. The fund’s aim is to promote scientific research on the challenges of integration.
