CBOW early stage researcher finishes his first “secondment” in Cologne, Germany

Oskars Gruziņš member of the European Union’s Marie Curie Initial Training Network, “Children born of war – past, present and future project,” from University of Latvia, has returned from his secondment at GESIS- the Leibniz Institute for Social Science.

The Marie Curie project entails that the early stage researchers stay at host organizations to learn from their experience on the topic of Children Born of War. As Oskars is working on a study of the children born of Nazi and Soviet soldiers in Latvia, Prof. Dr. Ingville Mochmann, of the GESIS institute, helped Oskars by familiarizing him with the studies that she has been involved in. Dr. Mochmann has done extensive quantitative studies focusing on Children Born of War in Norway and Denmark.

Oskars also attended courses on methodology and data analysis at the Cologne Business School and meet with experts in the field of data security and quantitative research. During his stay, Oskars presented his topic to students of the Cologne Business School who were learning about the way in which academic questions are approached and research is structured. His stay culminated with an experts meeting, held on the 3rd and 4th of March.

The meeting, “Children born of war in a comparative perspective- state of the art and recommendations for future research and policy implementations,” was attended by 13 participants who work on the topic of Children Born of War. Participants shared their experience while doing research on the topic in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Northern Uganda, Germany, Norway, Denmark and at the International Court of Justice. Oskars presented the initial research and challenges of his project and had an open discussion with the participants, on potential solutions to some of his challenges. Mr. Arne Oland, of the Danish War Child Association, was particularly active to give Oskars guidance. As Mr. Oland has done extensive archival research to find the identity of his father, he suggested many archives and sources related to Nazi soldiers paternity which may be of use for Oskars’ study.

The “Children born of war – past, present and future project” is a Horizon 2020 plan which is composed of 15 early stage researchers, 11 organizations, 12 partner organizations, with an aim at “understanding the challenges of CBOW in volatile societies [that] will inform the normative debates and, ultimately, policies on the reintegration of CBOW into post-conflict societies.”