TalentMagnet: Improved Institutional Capacities and New Multilevel Governance for Talent Attraction and Retention in the Danube Region

Project Managers: Ulf Brunnbauer, Barbara Stupka-Pleban
Project Editor: Sebastian Paul
Project duration: 2020–2022

The Interreg project "TalentMagnet" deals with the migration of highly qualified people from medium-sized cities in the Danube region. The project is funded by the European Union within the Interreg-Danube Transnational Programme for more than two years. Under the coordination of the Scientific Center of the Slovenian city of Ptuj, 29 consortium and cooperation partners from the following countries will work together: Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Austria, Croatia, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Ukraine and Hungary - and just the IOS as a research partner from Germany.

The Southeastern European countries along the Danube and its tributaries have experienced a strong outflow of labor in recent years, especially after their accession to or association with the EU, while the regions upstream of the Danube, such as Austria, Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg, are magnets for immigration; in some cases, these areas are already closely connected through older migration networks, for example from the time of the so-called guest worker migration. For people, especially the well-qualified, in the less prosperous parts of the region, the new migration opportunities meant the chance to realize their ambitions or at least improve their families' standard of living. For the communities affected by heavy migration, however, numerous negative consequences result from the so-called brain drain: they lose creative minds and skilled workers; businesses feel a growing shortage of labor; schools and kindergartens become increasingly empty and sometimes have to close as young families move their center of life abroad; there is a shortage of health care personnel, as becomes particularly painful in times of a pandemic; the older generations lack contact with their (grand)children (and vice versa).

The "TalentMagnet" project aims primarily to help medium-sized cities in the Danube region develop tools to motivate their young people to stay or return. This is not just about opening up attractive job opportunities, but about improving the quality of life in a broader sense; so cultural offerings, the quality of infrastructure or air, childcare options, and leisure and recreational opportunities also factor into considerations about leaving or staying. This practical focus of the project is expressed in the fact that most of the project partners are municipalities, development agencies and NGOs. IOS acts as a scientific partner and will analyze migration dynamics in cities of the Danube Region on the one hand and the meaningfulness of policy prescriptions on the other hand. In doing so, the IOS can build on the experience of the successful YOUMIG project (2017-2019), which is also funded by Interreg.

Project results:

TalentMagnet: Key findings of the Baseline Study (Presentation)

TalentMagnet: D.T1.1.5 Slide deck on the main findings of the Baseline Study (Presentation)

Funded by: European Union, Interreg, Danube Transnational Programme (2020—2022)