Policy Programme
A key aim of the RSC is to ensure that our primary functions of research and teaching have a meaningful impact beyond the academic community. We deliver this aim by combining our independent, objective and critical scholarship with an active role in engaging contemporary policy agendas and debates through dissemination of our research to and by dialogue and cooperation with policy makers in governments, intergovernmental agencies and non-governmental organisations in the field of forced migration. In this way, the Refugee Studies Centre Policy Engagement Programme acts as a catalyst for policy engagement by building links and developing partnership with a wide range of policy makers and advocacy networks working on displaced or vulnerable populations.
Forced migration research and policy overview
The effective engagement of the RSC in policy and practice is informed by an analysis of the current trends in policy making on forced migration. The 2009 'Forced Migration Research and Policy: Overview of Current Trends and Future Directions' mapped out both contemporary policy and practice issues and highlights new and emerging areas deserving further attention from researchers and policy makers. The overview focused on on-going or forthcoming RSC research such as ‘state fragility’and forced displacement, the economics of forced migration and environmental displacement.
Key components of the programme include:
Research is the RSC’s core activity. It is driven by the multiple interests of scholarship, policy relevance and engagement with practice. The Centre provides critical, rigorous, multidisciplinary analysis and highlights intellectual dilemmas. The policy engagement programme builds on this foundation and seeks to promote greater research visibility, accessibility and impact through astructured and focused dissemination and impact monitoring strategy
2. Forced Migration Policy Briefings
The RSC’s Forced Migration Policy Briefings series seeks to stimulate debates on issues of key interest to researchers, policy makers and practitioners from the fields of forced migration and humanitarian studies. Written by academic experts, the briefings provide solid policy relevant research findings in an accessible format.
3. Policy and Practice Dialogues
The RSC hosts a regular series of policy-related workshops and international conferences which serve as a forum to bring together academic researchers, policy makers and practitioners to discuss issues of particular strategic interest to academic field of forced migration studies and policy-related processes.
4. Network building
The RSC is engaging in strategic partnerships with government representatives, key international institutions and organisations, including from the global South, in order to work collaboratively in the areas of research, policy development and advocacy.
Current projects:
Unlocking crises of protracted displacement for refugees and internally displaced persons
Magunga camp, DRC, home to over 100,000 refugees. In the background the active volcano Mount Nyiragongo threatened to erupt. If it did, aid agencies knew they would have only a few days’ warning to move the entire population. (c) Adrian Arbid.
Read more about the RSC Experts' Workshop Dynamics of conflict and forced migration in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
