This online panel is a collaborative endeavour between multiple institutions across the Euro-Mediterranean region marking together Refugee Week. We seek to stimulate a conversation that reflects critically on the challenges of responding fairly and ethically to population movements caused by wars and calamities.

Starting by addressing the ongoing influxes of refugees from Ukraine into European countries, the discussion will then offer an overview of the responses and of the motives provided by different state and non state actors across Europe both to current and to past refugee and immigrant influxes. 

Speakers and bios

Dr Vsevolod Samokhvalov (Vrije Universiteit Brussel)
Vsevolod Samokhvalov is Adjunct Professor at the Brussels School of Governance at the VUB. He works on identity politics and nationalism, conflicts, Russian-European relations in the Black Sea region, Eurasian politics and state-building in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe.

Dr Konrad Pędziwiatr (Cracow University)
Author of numerous publication on religion and ethnicity in the processes of migration, Konrad Pędziwiatr is professor in the Department of International Affairs at the Cracow University of Economics, researcher at the Center for Advanced Studies of Population and Religion (CASPAR) and initiator-coordinator  of the Multiculturalism and Migration Observatory (MMO)

Dr Vlado Kmec (Von Hügel Institute, Cambridge)
Vlado Kmec is a Research Associate at the Von Hügel Institute at the University of Cambridge and an active member of the Evangelical Church in Berlin. He lectures on international security and international relations. His research focuses on migration and religion, ethnic and religious conflicts, peacebuilding, and EU and UN peace missions.

Dr Elif Çetin (Von Hügel Institute, Cambridge, and Yaşar University, Turkey)
Elif is an Assistant Professor at the Department of International Relations of Yaşar University, and a Research Associate at the Von Hügel Institute, St Edmund’s College, University of Cambridge. Elif’s work and interests include politicisation of immigration, UK, Italian and Turkish immigration politics, political discourse formation, and development of immigration control policies and populist right-wing parties in Europe.

Dr Alexandria Innes (City, University of London)
Alexandria is a Lecturer in International Relations in the Violence and Society Centre at City, University of London. Her research is situated at the intersection of critical security studies and migration studies. She is currently a CI in the UKRI funded VISION Consortium research in violence, health and society.

Dr Sara Silvestri (City, University of London)
Sara Silvestri is Senior Lecturer in the Department of International Politics at City, University of London, where she teaches courses on the EU and on religion and politics, and is a Bye Fellow of St Edmund’s College, University of Cambridge. Her current research examines the role of faith-based organisations in responding to refugees and migrants’ flows.