Seven UNIC universities are collaborating on the MITIME project. Among them is Ruhr University, home to the Chair of Sociology/Transnationalization, Migration, and Work, held by Prof. Dr. Margit Fauser. 

© RUB, Marquard

EU project

Migration and Time in Post-Industrial European Cities

In the European research project MITIME: Entanglements of Migration and Time in Post-Industrial Urban Europe, doctoral students from seven UNIC universities are exploring migration, temporality, and urban inequalities.

Migration is one of the most critical social, cultural, and political challenges. The role that time plays in this context—rhythms, ruptures, and inequalities—has so far been insufficiently researched and understood in both policy-making and migration studies. The project Entanglements of Migration and Time in Post-industrial Urban Europe (MITIME)aims to change this by examining migration, temporality, and urban inequalities. A European consortium that brings together seven partners from UNIC universities has successfully secured Horizon Europe funding for this project under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) – Doctoral Networks. The consortium is coordinated by the University of Oulu in Finland.

MITIME presents a great opportunity for our research on transnationalization, migration, and labor.

— Margit Fauser

Ruhr University Bochum is participating in the project through the Chair of Sociology/Transnationalization, Migration, and Work, led by Prof. Dr. Margit Fauser. “MITIME represents a tremendous opportunity for our research on transnationalization, migration, and work. The program combines excellent support for early-career researchers with high-level exchange among international researchers and addresses precisely where many of the most pressing social issues arise: in post-industrial cities like Bochum. We look forward to working with our UNIC partners to create an environment in which young scholars can develop new perspectives on global mobility and urban inequalities,” says Fauser. 

15 Early Career Researchers are collaborating across Europe

Ruhr University Bochum welcomes two doctoral researchers who will start on 1 September 2026. Chukwudi Matthew Anuforo investigates migrants' responses to the time regimes of urban labour markets to answer the question how precarious work is related to temporal precarity, and how migrants still develop practices of resilience practices and contestation. The project will be co-supervised by colleagues at Koc University Instanbul. Rebecca Süss will work on a project concerned with local labour immigration governance and will research institutional agents’ policies and practices to understand the temporal order of migrant labour in postindustrial cities. Her project will be co-supervised by researchers of Erasmus University Rotterdam. In addition, MITIME researchers at RUB co-supervise two doctoral candidates based in Oulu who work on the themes of labour and of conviviality in the temporal contexts of postindustrial cities. 

Funding

The MSCA funding line is one of the most significant EU programs for structured training of early-career researchers and is considered highly competitive. It enables that a total of 15 PhD positions will be fully funded for the period from 2026 to 2029.

More information about the EU project

The EU project's website: https://www.migrationtime.eu/

The UNIC University Alliance

RUB is part of the international university consortium UNIC – European University of Cities in Post-Industrial Transition. This is a network of ten universities dedicated to promoting student mobility, collaborative innovative teaching, and new perspectives in research and knowledge transfer. The focus is on addressing the challenges facing our post-industrial cities. 

For more information please visit: UNIC – The European University of Cities in Post-Industrial Transition.

Published

Tuesday
26 May 2026
3:21 pm

By

Lisa Bischoff (lb)

Share