The University of Warsaw (UWarsaw), founded in 1816, is the leading university and research centre in Poland. The high level scientific research, its connection to education of students and the diversity and attractiveness of teaching determine the position of the UW in Poland and worldwide. UW is listed amongst the top 4% of the World-Class Universities and recognized by prestigious international rankings, such as the Academic Ranking of World Universities, QS Top Universities and Times Higher Education World University Rankings. UW educates over 53,500 students. It employs more than 6,300 persons, including 3,250 academic teachers. Currently, there are 20 faculties and 30 other organizational units, including the Centre of New Technologies, Centre for Pre-clinical Research and Technology and University Technology Transfer Centre. The University collaborates with ca 1,000 foreign institutions, including 420 partnerships of more than 1,100 agreements in the frame of Erasmus program and 240 partners from 52 countries within the boundaries of university agreements on direct collaboration. UW offers undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate studies, organizes summer schools and vocational courses, initiates interdisciplinary programs and introduces new teaching techniques, all in response to the needs of the changing world and the challenges and complexity of the labour market. UW scholars regularly receive awards and win competitions for research grants. Scientific and vocational development of students is supported by international collaboration. Polish as well as international companies highly value our graduates, among which successful entrepreneurs and recognized scholars and writers, including Nobel Prize laureates, are to be found.
en.uw.edu.pl
The Centre of Migration Research (CMR) was established in 1993 and remains a leading interdisciplinary interfaculty research unit of the University of Warsaw, specializing in studies on migration processes in Poland and in Europe. 57 researchers are currently affiliated with the CMR; among them 12 professors, 27 researchers holding a PhD degree and 18 persons with a MA degree. Within the group, researchers with sociological and economic backgrounds predominate but such fields as demography, political science, administrative law, social anthropology, geography and cross-cultural psychology are also represented. Academic and research activities have been the main goal of the CMR activity since its origins. The Centre has been involved in a number of migration projects (varying in scale), funded by national and international sources. To date, the largest and most significant scientifically projects conducted by the CMR include: IDEA – Mediterranean and Eastern European Countries as new immigration destinations in the European Union (consortium of eleven institutions from nine countries, co-funded by 6 Framework Program), Mobility and Migrations at the Time of Transformation - Methodological Challenges (MWM, co-funded by EEA Financial Mechanism), Migration Policy, Labour Market Change (MPLM Project, co-funded by the European Social Fund), and RESPOND: Multilevel Governance of Mass Migration in Europe and Beyond (financed in the frame of Horizon 2020). Currently the Centre hosts a Marie-Curie doctoral fellow within an 7th Framework Program Initial Training Network project (TRANSMIC). It also has a role in the leadership of a NORFACE- funded project on the role of welfare systems in destination and origin countries for migration patterns within and towards Europe (MobileWelfare).
Karolina Sobczak-Szelc | Principal Investigator
assistant professor at CMR. She has a background in physical and social geography as well as in spatial development. In her research Karolina combines earth science, social geography, spatial development and sociology to study the influence of the environment to human migration from countries in arid regions. Her deep insights in this field stem from numerous studies conducted in the countries of North Africa, particularly Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt, majority of which she coordinated. She also participated in a project implemented in the framework of Polish Aid entitled “Training in respect of sustainable development and environment protection in the Mhamid oasis, Morocco”. She is also interested in integration challenges and possibilities for the EU countries in relation to the large influx of migrants from Arab countries in the last years.
k.sobczak-szelc@uw.edu.pl
Agata Górny
Head of Population Economics and Demography Chair at the Faculty of Economic Sciences (University of Warsaw) and Research Fellow in Centre of Migration Research (University of Warsaw). Dr. Górny is also a vice-president of Committee for Migration Studies of Polish Academy of Sciences. Since 2012, she holds the position of Editor in Chief of Central and Eastern European Migration Review. Her main research interests include determinants of mobility patterns, integration of migrants and methods of migration research. She is co-editor of several books and author of a number of articles and book chapters in these areas. In 2003 and 2004, she was awarded the Scholarship for Young Researchers granted by the Foundation for Polish Science.
agata@gorny.edu.pl
Marta Pachocka
assistant professor at the Department of Political Studies of the Collegium of Socio-Economics of the SGH Warsaw School of Economics and a head of the Migration Policies Research Unit at the Centre of Migration Research (CMR) of the University of Warsaw. She received her PhD in Economics in 2013 with a specialisation in International Relations. At the CMR, she is a researcher in different projects, including: the RESPOND project – “Multilevel Governance of Mass Migration in Europe and Beyond” (2017–2020) co-financed by the EU Horizon 2020 Programme, in which she coordinates two working packages („International protection” and „Reception conditions”) within the Polish team; the IMINTEG project – “In search for models of relations between immigration and integration policies” co-financed by the National Science Centre in Poland (2015–2018), and the project „Atlas of Transitions. New Geographies for a Cross-Cultural Europe” coordinated by the Powszechny Theatre in Poland within Creative Europe Programme (2018–2020). Marta’s main research interests include: socio-demographic changes in Europe/the EU and their consequences; international migration, migration and asylum in Europe; EU policy on migration and asylum; forced migration studies; international economics and international organizations. She is an author and a co-author of many book chapters, journal articles and conference papers.
m.pachocka@uw.edu.pl
Monika Szulecka
Political scientist. Since 2007 she has been working as associate researcher at the Centre of Migration Research, University of Warsaw, and since 2015 she has been an employee of the Institute of Law Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences. She has participated in a number of national or international research projects focused on economic adaptation of migrants, functioning of irregular migrants in Poland and in other countries, irregular migration and threats linked to migration (such as forced labour), the functioning of border crossings and the criminality of foreigners. She is an expert of the Foundation of the Centre of Migration Research. She took part in several projects coordinated by international bodies (FRA, ICMPD) or national organisations (e.g. Stefan Batory Foundation, Association of Legal Intervention). Her scientific interests relate to the topic of migrants’ functioning in Poland, economic migration, migration and asylum policy, as well as the prevention of irregular migration and undeclared work of foreigners. Since 2008 she has participated in the editorial team of ‘Migration Bulletin’.
m.szulecka@uw.edu.pl
Justyna Szałańska
Justyna Szalanska is pursuing her PhD at the Faculty of Political Sciences and International Studies at the University of Warsaw, Poland. Her PhD dissertation focuses on a category of national identity and its materialization in Turkey’s foreign policy. In 2009 she did her M.A. Diploma in International Relations and in 2010 B.A. Diploma in Turkish Studies at the University of Warsaw. In 2011 she was a Research Trainee at the BILGESAM, a Turkish think tank. In 2014 she was awarded TUBITAK Scholarship for Foreign Researchers in Turkey, hence from November 2014 until May 2015 she was a Research Fellow at the Center of International and European Research at the Kadir Has University (Turkey). Her research interests focus on European integration, identity issues in Turkey and Europe, citizenship policies and refugees and asylum seekers protection policies. She is also a co-author of a short documentary on refugees perception in Poland ‘Bez komentarza’ (‘Without a comment’) produced by museum POLIN (2016). In the Centre of Migration Research she is engaged in the project ‘RESPOND - Multilevel Governance of Mass Migration in Europe and Beyond’.
justyna.szalanska@uw.edu.pl
Anita Brzozowska
A sociologist focusing on mobility, integration, ethnic attitudes and diversity, inequalities and social change, the policies of inclusion and social cohesion. Her academic interests also include the sociology of the family. As a researcher at the Centre of Migration Research, University of Warsaw (2014) she has been involved in many projects that use the lens of migration to examine key dynamics in modern societies. In 2019 she defended her PhD thesis “Intermarriage, social structure, and integration of migrants. The case of Polish-Ukrainian marriages in Poland” at the Faculty of Philosophy and Sociology, University of Warsaw.
anita.brzozowska@uw.edu.pl
Recent Blog Entries
Konrad Pędziwiatr
Holds PhD in Social Sciences from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium) and MA in European Studies from the University of Exeter (UK), and in Sociology from the Jagiellonian University (Poland). He is a Professor at the Department of European Studies (Cracow University of Economics) and a researcher in the Centre of Migration Research (University of Warsaw) specializing in sociology of Islam, religious dimensions of migration studies and social movements in Europe and the Middle East. He is author of monographs: “Transformations of Islamisms in Egypt and Tunisia in the Context of the Arab Spring” (Nomos 2019), ”Polish Migration Policy: in Search of a New Model” (UW 2015 with Matyja and Siewierska-Chmaj), ”The New Muslim Elites in European Cities” (VDM Verlag 2010) and “From Islam of Immigrants to Islam of Citizens: Muslims in the Countries of Western Europe” (Nomos 2005, 2007). He has also published numerous articles in scientific journals including Patterns of Prejudice, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Social Compass and Gender, Place and Culture.
by Jasmin Lilian Diab, Fouad M. Fouad | Global Health Institute, American University of Beirut
The Syrian civil war has displaced more than half of Syria’s population; within Syria for safety or to the neighboring countries to seek refuge. In the first two years of the Syria crisis, these countries; Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan, have opened their borders with no restrictions. The international humanitarian organizations and the international community have supported these states with the heavy burdens on their infrastructure.