EPIC

This document aims to provide a summary of what the three and a half years of work have meant for the EPIC project, its partners and all those organizations and individuals who, in one way or another, have benefited from this initiative.
The EPIC project began by launching an online survey to gather information on migration and integration practices in the EU.
In the end, nearly 700 residents from 11 European cities shared their opinions.
After a first year of fruitful analysis and discussions that allowed the project to gain a deeper understanding of migration, and once the best practices and needs of each territory were identified, the project created partner pairs consisting of a local authority (LA) and an NGO with sector-specific expertise on migrant integration and a LA and an NGO in need of support to acquire competences in that specific field.
The fundamental idea of EPIC is that EU cities and regions have been facing immigration problems for many years, some more than others, but the nature of the challenges are often very similar and therefore cities could (and should) learn from each other to manage these challenges in the most effective way for both migrants and host societies, ideally making them a cohesive whole.
Hence, EPIC cities became their own mentors and mentees in a process in which “paired cities” taught each other.