Belgium Partners
Piste is a partnership between universities from different European countries.
Belgium Project Partners
Have a look at our partners and all team members from Belgium in this section.
Ninove
Ninove (40,000 inhabitants) is a Flemish town, located in the Denderstreek within the province of East Flanders in the vicinity of Brussel. In the last 10 years, residents of foreign origin doubled, with emerging challenges that this town is willing to address through the creation of a participation platform in collaboration with the local schools which targets young citizens with a migration background in order to properly consider diversity in local policy making.
Team Member
Agnessa Solovieva
Agnessa Solovieva works as a staff member in the social affairs sector for the municipality of Ninove since 2018. Responsible for the policy of the transversal domain “equal opportunities” which include the integration of persons of foreign origin, persons with disabilities, LGBTQIA+ community and a global equality policy. Coordinator of projects such as orientation of the new inhabitants of foreign origin, use of language in administrative affairs, projects in the education sector, depolarization, awareness campaigns and events, coordination of the bridge builders in diversity, north-south operation, etc. As an experienced expert with migration roots myself, I put my insights into practice on a daily basis in my professional field
University of Antwerp
The University of Antwerp is a renowned Belgian university, situated in the city of Antwerp within the Flemish Region. Its team counts on researchers from the Centre for Research on Environmental and Social Change (CRESC), within the Department of Sociology, focusing, among other issues, on processes of social inclusion and exclusion and new forms of solidarity and citizenship in super-diversity.
Team Member
Elise Schillebeeckx
Elise Schillebeeckx holds a PhD in Sociology and a PhD in Architecture from the University of Antwerp and KU Leuven University. She has worked as a postdoctoral researcher at KU Leuven on various projects on superdiversity in small towns in the urban periphery of Brussels and on the related tensions between the established and the outsiders. She is currently a research fellow at the Centre for Research on Environmental and Social Change (CRESC) at the Department of Sociology of the University of Antwerp. She is working on Work Package 3 of the PISTE project focusing on the creation and consolidation of operative local and international networks of institutional and civil society actors involved in planning, implementation and/or fruition of integration policies.
Ona Schyvens
Ona Schyvens is a PhD student in Sociology at the University of Antwerp within the Centre for Research on Environmental and Social Change (CRESC). She is working on Work Package 2 of the PISTE project, analysing the participation of migrants in the design of integration policies in Ninove (East Flanders). In this work package, she will create an overview of integration practices through an assessment of the policy tradition in the Flemish region. She has gained research experience in the field of integration of unaccompanied minor refugees in Belgium. Additionally, she is involved as a research partner in the Hannah Arendt Institute, a platform that connects scientific knowledge about diversity, urbanisation and citizenship with the insights of policymakers, citizens and organisations
Silke Peeters
Silke Peeters is a bachelor and master student in Sociology at the University of Antwerp. As a part of her education she is also doing an Honours Programma that is focussed on connectedness and (super)diversity. Within this programme, she is doing an internship at the Center for Research on Environmental and Social Change (CRESC) and she is working on WP2 of the PISTE project.
Stijn Oosterlynck
Stijn Oosterlynck is a Full Professor in Urban Sociology at the University of Antwerp, Belgium. He is a member of the sociological Centre for Research on Environmental and Social Change (CRESC). He is the chair of the Antwerp Urban Studies Institute and Scientific Director of Hannah Arendt Institute for Urbanity, Diversity in Citizenship. His research is focused on poverty and diversity in cities, the politics of urban development, place-based forms of solidarity, city-state relations and urban civil society. He is currently the coordinator of the Marie-Curie International Training Network SOLiDi and is involved in research projects on transit-oriented development, religious solidarity and integration policies in small and medium-sized cities.