LDE GMD's members (Director Peter Scholten, Masters Coordinator Maria Schiller, Lecturer Asya Pisarevskaya, Alumni Adham Aly) represented Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR), signing the agreement of long-term collaboration between the city of Rotterdam, RADAR (Anti-discrimination agency), and the EUR. The new covenant sign paves the way for structural research on discrimination in Rotterdam.
Delegations from Erasmus University, antidiscrimination agency RADAR, and the Municipality of Rotterdam met on the 27th of May to sign the new covenant for the Rotterdam Inclusivity Project. This ensures the continuation of structural research into patterns of discrimination, racism, and inequality in Rotterdam for the next four years.
Since 2021, the Rotterdam Inclusivity Project has focused on investigating discrimination in the city and contributing its insights to improve municipal policymaking. In the past years, quantitative research has been conducted on discrimination in Rotterdam as a whole and within its neighbourhoods. This quantitative foundation will enable a new focus on qualitative research in the coming years to understand how different forms of discrimination manifest in the city.
Additionally, the project aims to make the research results and data publicly available on a new website that is currently under development. This website will be a platform where a broad audience of social workers, policymakers, and other interested parties can work with the data themselves.
The reaffirmation of the collaboration allows for a deeper understanding of patterns of discrimination and the development of effective strategies against discrimination in Rotterdam. This long-term alliance provides space for the three parties to achieve their goals in synergy: for the municipality, it offers the opportunity to create evidence-based policymaking in the field of anti-discrimination and inclusion; RADAR can contribute its knowledge of discrimination experiences and advise the municipality; and Erasmus University can conduct research in ‘the heart of the city’ and share knowledge with the involved organizations.
The covenant was signed by Annemarie Willemsen, head of community affairs at the municipality of Rotterdam; Sjaak van der Linde, director of the anti-discrimination agency RADAR; and Prof. dr. Peter Scholten on behalf of Erasmus University Rotterdam.
