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Our goal is to provide academics, governments, international organisations and NGOs with information for research and evidence-based evaluation of public policies.

We do not offer information or counselling to individuals interested in acquiring the citizenship of a particular country and we do not encourage experts in our network to answer such requests.

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EUDO Citizenship Implementation Indicators
By contrast with automatic acquisition of citizenship by birth or at majority, naturalisation requires an application by the individual concerned and an administrative procedure though which public authorities determine whether an applicant qualifies for citizenship. Studying the implementation of citizenship law is therefore crucial for assessing its impact on the numbers and the social characteristics of immigrants who become citizens.

In most countries, naturalisation is based on a discretionary decision by authorities, while in a few it is a legal entitlement of eligible applicants. Administrative procedures are important for the outcome in both cases. Discretion is often constrained by administrative and legal rules, and entitlements still involve a need for authorities to assess whether an applicant meets the conditions.

Bureaucracies are influenced by political and administrative cultures, and patterns of informal administrative behaviour vary therefore across and within countries. These differences could only be captured by qualitative case studies. The goal of EUDO CITIZENSHIP is to provide reliable facts and evaluations of citizenship regimes across a large number of countries. We do not have enough resources to study informal administrative behaviour.

EUDO Citizenship Implementation Indicators (CITIMP) attempt therefore to compare the formal aspects of naturalisation procedures. These include all stages of the process from efforts by public authorities to inform potential applicants to appeal options against a negative decision.

CITIMP covers five dimensions of administrative practices and procedures regulating naturalisation:
•    Promotion: how much do authorities encourage eligible applicants to apply?
•    Documentation: how easy is it for applicants to prove that they meet the legal conditions?
•    Discretion: how much room do authorities have to interpret the legal conditions?
•    Bureaucracy: how easy is it for authorities to come to a decision?
•    Review: how strong is judicial oversight of the procedure?

CITIMP indicators will allow comparing specific steps in the procedure across countries. Findings will also be visualised in flow charts for ordinary naturalisation procedures.

CITIMP indicators can be combined with CITLAW naturalisation indicators and CITACQ statistical indicators in order to analyse the impact of a legal regime on the rates of citizenship acquisition.

Research on EUDO Citizenship Implementation Indicators is coordinated by Thomas Huddleston for the EUDO CITIZENSHIP consortium partner Migration Policy Group.