Migration Policy Centre adds new team members
Six academics joined the Migration Policy Centre (MPC) in September, among them four fellows within the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies.
The newcomers add to the diverse expertise already established at the centre, which launched in June, examining issues within and far beyond Europe’s borders.
Robert Schuman fellows joining the team are Meenakshi Thapan from the University of Delhi and Andrew Geddes, politics professor at the University of Sheffield and former Fernand Braudel Senior Fellow at the EUI.
Caroline Mall Dibiasi has joined as a Jean Monnet Fellow following her PhD at Durham University, while Chinmay Tumbe arrived from the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore for the same programme.
Two research assistants will also join the MPC; Ghaïda Ghediri and Frank McNamara, a second-year law researcher.
Thapan says she learnt of the EUI and the new centre while researching Indian migration to the Emilia–Romagna region in northern Italy. “Because of my interest in migration I found [MPC director] Philippe Fargues and contacted him…this is the best place I could be to do this kind of work,” she says. While on sabbatical from Delhi she will write up her fieldwork, which examined the integration of immigrants from Punjab state in northwest India in Italy and the role of the third sector such as the Catholic Church in this process.
Geddes will continue developing his work on the governance of international migration undertaken while at Sheffield, in addition to developing a project on temporary migration which he says will consider future needs and policies and reflect on Europe’s relations with migrants’ countries of origin.
Mall Dibiasi’s focus steps outside of Europe to investigate the political, social and cultural aspects of Palestinian labour migration to Israel. “Especially in terms of mobility,” she explains, “Crossing borders will be one of the key issues I’ll look out; how Palestinians have to negotiate this on a daily basis.”
In partnership with the European Council on Refugees and Exiles, www.ecre.org the MPC is running the Know Reset project which aims to evaluate resettlement programmes in the EU and in doing so inform policymakers and the public of best practice. McNamara will support this work, while continuing his PhD research into EU migration law and policy.
Led by Fargues, who was founding director of the Center for Migration and Refugee Studies Program at the American University in Cairo, the MPC team carries out field and archival research which addresses policy priorities.