The aim of the interdisciplinary cooperative project is to provide the agricultural enterprises with a new instrument for the professional and social integration of foreign skilled personnel. For its implementation a specific teaching module for executives will be developed.

The Agricultural Company Barnstädt e.G. (registered cooperative society) and the Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies (IAMO) work together on this topic with the Center for Social Research in Halle (Zentrum für Sozialforschung ZSH, a registered association) at the Martin-Luther University Halle-Wittenberg. They combine practical concerns and the experience of an agricultural enterprise with sociological and agro-economic expertise. The main focus of the project is not the placement of skilled personnel but the provision of knowledge about processes of operational and social integration of foreign workers.

Based on original data collected in Germany, Bulgaria and Russia, knowledge about the respective agricultural labour markets will be generated to derive strategies for the integration of foreign workers. The instrument will be developed and tested in close cooperation with the agricultural company that already enhances its supply of skilled workers with foreign employees. The cooperative thought with its cohesiveness of skilled workers plays a particular role.

A rapid vocational integration and effective retention strategies that increase the possibility of a lasting connection to the company are the precondition for including skilled foreign workers in companies as sustainable as possible.

Hereby it is important to consider the requirement, conditions and expectations of both sides (the German employers and the skilled foreign workers).