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According to the Czech Ministry of the Interior, around 4,200 people with temporary protection due to the war in Ukraine currently live in the Tachov region. Across the border, in the Bavarian Hof area, thousands more have settled. Yet no one has systematically compared how Czech and German municipalities approach their integration or identified which measures are truly effective. A new cross-border research project aims to fill this gap. Political scientists, sociologists, German studies scholars, and AI experts will spend several years conducting individual and group interviews on both sides of the border to map local experiences and identify solutions that municipalities, non-governmental organizations, and public institutions can apply in their everyday work.

The researchers will focus primarily on women and adolescents from Ukraine. According to the research team, these two groups are often overlooked when designing integration measures. "Teenagers face challenges such as moving into secondary education, finding peers and gaining their first work experience. Women often balance employment with childcare and household responsibilities. Both groups play a crucial role in determining how successfully families settle into a new environment," said Přemysl Rosůlek, political scientist at the University of West Bohemia's Faculty of Arts and the project's principal investigator. The project will produce practical recommendations for municipalities, schools and other institutions working with these communities.

After Prague, the districts of Pilsen-City and Tachov have the second- and third-highest shares of foreign residents relative to their populations in the Czech Republic. "The Tachov region is well known for offering employment opportunities for low- and semi-skilled workers, making it a natural destination for migrants. Hof, meanwhile, serves as a gateway to the more prosperous part of Bavaria," Rosůlek added. He also pointed out that migrant networks established in previous years help newcomers build contacts and settle more easily.

The researchers will therefore examine the work of municipalities, schools, non-profit organizations, and public institutions. They will investigate how local authorities communicate with newcomers, what role regional media and social networks play, and how cooperation between the Czech and Bavarian sides of the border can be improved. "We will conduct interviews in dozens of municipalities on both sides of the border, at the grammar school in Stříbro and at two grammar schools in Hof. Altogether, we expect to involve more than 100 respondents of different ages. We will also create a perception map of the border region, capturing people's experiences of living in the area and their integration into society," said sociologist Florian Piffl from Hochschule Hof. The research team will also use artificial intelligence tools to analyze the collected data.