Publications

Forced migration and refugees are politically charged and highly contested issues. One of FFVT's mandates is to facilitate knowledge transfer into the public domain and dialogue with and among stakeholders. With this briefing note we aim to sketch the conceptual tools and theoretical frameworks applied to analysing knowledge transfer, research–policy relations, the research–policy nexus or the research–policy dialogue, to name a few terms, in this field. Given that many migration scholars are called in by media and policy to add expertise to societal debates we hope this may help reflecting on the role and impact of science in this field.

People with a migration background are not only recipients of healthcare services, but are also indispensable as employees in the healthcare sector.

The conference ‘Systemrelevant und systemisch benachteiligt? (Flucht-)Migration und Gesundheit: Zugang, Teilhabe und Beschäftigung’ on 14 and 15 March 2023 at Friedrich Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg was dedicated to their complex roles and the associated challenges and potential.

The online workshop “Contested Categories — Issues at the Intersection of Development and Forced Migration Studies” from 4 - 5 October 2021 was organised by IDOS (German Institute of Development and Sustainability).
The workshop addressed the critique of categories and the debates about them in development research and considers their relevance and utility for forced migration studies (FMS).

On 15 September 2022, the German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS), on behalf of the FFVT project, and the Local Engagement Refugee Research Network (LERRN) jointly organised the online workshop “Forced Migration Studies and Policy Dialogue: Promoting New Ways of Knowledge Production and Policy Transfer”. Invited participants met under Chatham House Rules. The workshop was structured around two sessions: Session one discussed why new ways of doing forced migration research are needed, and session two looked into how to implement such new ways. Each session featured brief impulses and discussions which brought in perspectives from German and Canadian government representatives, public and private research funders, refugee-led organisations and international forced migration researchers from the Global South, North and East.

The first FFVT expert workshop aimed to clarify how the intersection between Peace and Conflict Research and Forced Migration and Refugee Studies can be conceptualised from the perspective of a wide range of academic disciplines working in this overlapping field.

On 12 May 2022, the Deutsche Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE)* organised a parliamentary evening on behalf of the joint project ‘ Forced Migration and Refugee Studies: Networking and Knowledge Transfer’ (FFVT) on the topic of ‘Germany's approach to global displacement and forced displacement: What next for resettlement and humanitarian admission?’, which focused in particular on the refugee situation in Ukraine. The evening was held under the patronage of the Parliamentary State Secretary to the Federal Minister of Education and Research, Dr h.c. Thomas Sattelberger. The guests included members and staff of the German parliament, spokespersons for refugee and migration policy from the political parties and specialised officials from relevant ministries.

* The name of the institute changed to ‘German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS)’ in June 2022.

On 8 November 2021, FFVT organised the online panel discussion “FFVT on point: Forced migration in Afghanistan and Afghan refugees in the region” to discuss and assess the current situation with academics and practitioners.

The workshop "(Im)mobility in international research cooperation: knowledge and partnerships between the South and North, East and West" on 22 June 2021 provided a platform for representatives of academic and policy-oriented forced migration and refugee studies networks to engage in a dialogue to explore, discuss and critically reflect on questions of structural and content-related cooperation among networks and in international cooperation projects in the field from Southern, Eastern and Northern/Western perspectives. The objective was to identify opportunities and obstacles and to come up with practical steps that we, as a community, can take to work towards more participatory and co-creative approaches in international knowledge cooperation. 

A central aim of the FFVT project is to specifically strengthen internationalisation in the field of forced migration and refugee studies. Thereby, it aspires to address various shortcomings identified in the ongoing debate on the politics of knowledge production. Internationalisation, however, is more than just a praxis, more than just doing internationalisation, but a concept based on critical theoretical reflections on scientific knowledge production. We thus aim to combine a pragmatic approach with some theoretical underpinning. In this FFVT briefing note, the author Franck Düvell, highlights the findings from some key publications on internationalising scientific cooperation in this field.