The “nccr – on the move” Blog in 2021

The nccr – on the move blog had over 13’000 visitors during this past year, of which almost three quarters (9859) were new to our blog. These increasing numbers indicate that over the last six years the nccr – on the move blog has become an established source of information for those working on and interested in migration and mobility issues in Switzerland and beyond.

Given Switzerland’s multilingual context as well as the increasing visits to our German and French blog contributions, we believe that it is important to regularly publish contributions in the national languages. Moreover, the most-read blog contributions of last year also illustrate that although English may be the lingua franca of the academic community, German and French attract an important readership as well.

The three most-read contributions of 2021 deal with how and why naturalization matters, the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the careers of young researchers and the discrimination in the Swiss labor market. The three most-read blog authors were drafted by women, two of them were featured in the #NCCR Women campaign, and one was a member of our NCCR alumni campaign. But without further ado, the most-read blog post in 2021 is «Welchen Nutzen bringt Staatsbürgerschaft?», by Anita Manatschal.

The Most-read Blog Contribution of 2021

The most-read blog post of 2021 is an older contribution from 2017 written by Anita Manatschal,  who is an Assistant Professor in Migration Policy Analysis at the University of Neuchâtel, currently leading a team investigating the impact of societal norms on behavior and attitudes.  She was also one of our scientists portrayed in the framework of the #NCCR Women campaign. In her blog post that was read over 850 times, she summarizes recent research findings on the positive effects of naturalization, i.e. of immigrants obtaining the citizenship of their host country, on the social, economic and political integration of immigrants and of society as a whole.

The interest in this text demonstrates that the discussion on whether and how to facilitate access to Swiss nationality, which is currently rather difficult to obtain, continues to be of concern to researchers, policymakers and civil society alike. Only in December 2021, the Council of States rejected a left-wing proposal to introduce citizenship by birthright (“ius soli”), tabled by Senator Paul Rechsteiner (Socialist Party), instead of the current regulation that determines citizenship by the nationality of one of both parents (“ius sanguinis”).

The First Runner-up

The second most-read blog post of 2021 (480 readers) was written by our doctoral student, Leslie Ader, also featured as one of our five inspiring #NCCRWomen, on “Spoon and Fork Theory in 2020: COVID-19 and Mental Health in Academia”. In her article, she argues that the COVID-19 pandemic has been particularly challenging for one group of academics, namely university students and junior scholars. Drawing on the insights of Spoon and Fork Theory, she illustrates that the pandemic has been particularly detrimental to the mental health of students and junior scholars.

The interest in this piece shows that it is important to raise awareness for the working conditions of junior academics, as their well-being or lack thereof, as it has the potential to put the future of the academic system at stake. The issues raised in this blog have also been made public by the “petition academia” campaign, which deposited a petition to the Federal Assembly on 8 October 2021, signed by 8600 people, to improve the working conditions of researchers, protect their health and family life, and thereby ensure the excellence of scientific research in Switzerland.

The Second Runner-up

The third most-read post of 2021 ( read by 454) was written in 2019 by our doctoral student alumna, Eva Zschirnt, who now works as an Assistant Professor at the University of Amsterdam. In her article, « Werden Schweizer*innen mit Migrationshintergrund auf dem Arbeitsmarkt diskriminiert?, she presents the main findings of the correspondence test on discrimination in the Swiss labor market carried out by the NCCR project team working on Discrimination as an Obstacle to Social Cohesion.

These findings were published in an article in the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies in fall 2021, which reported significant discrimination against Black job seekers, who must send around 30 percent more applications than White candidates to be invited to a job interview. The level of discrimination is substantively equivalent to results for applicants with a Kosovo-Albanian name. This research draws attention to the limits of the meritocratic principle that underpins education and integration policies by demonstrating that labor market chances continue to be influenced by the origin of an individual.

Different Perspectives on Shared Topics

The three most-read articles were all published as contributions to blog series, rather than stand-alone pieces. This confirms our editorial decision to increasingly publish articles that shed light on one shared topic from different perspectives. Moreover, if these blog series can be linked to developments and events in the policy realm, such as a vote on the reform of the citizenship act, the Covid-19 pandemic or “Black Lives Matter,” they seem to be even more attractive to our readership. For us, this is proof that communication activities based on insights from scientific research have an important role to play in today’s communication landscape.

Nicole Wichmann is the Former Administrative Director of the NCCR.