The European Migrant Integration Cockpits and Dashboards (MICADO) project, which is working on a technological application to facilitate the integration process of migrants and refugees arriving in Europe, is making progress. In the summer of 2021 it successfully completed the first usability test of its app, and has now been chosen as a finalist for the Policy Innovation Awards. These awards are given by the Innovation in Politics Institute, an entity whose mission is to identify innovative, courageous and creative initiatives that promote good practices and present solutions to European problems from the field of public administrations and political actors.

The app being developed by MICADO will help migrant communities to access the social systems of housing, education, health care or work. Usability test results show cause for optimism. José María Álvarez Monzoncillo, a professor at the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos - one of the project's promoters - has confirmed based on his research and understanding that the application will facilitate contact between authorities and administrations with civil society, specifically refugee and migrant communities.

A small sample of the app's main users - migrants and refugees, public administrations and NGOs - in four participating cities have already tested the beta version and carried out different tasks on mobile phones and computers. The results of this pilot test allow improvements to be made in development, access to information, clarity of content, terminology used and visual design of the tool, which in a few months will be tested in a second usability test involving a larger number of subjects.

Further information can be found here.