Dr Almina Bešić

Almina Bešić is an assistant professor at the Johannes Kepler University Linz (Austria). She is also an independent consultant and researcher for the European Migration Network and a visiting lecturer at the University of Graz (Austria). She holds a PhD in Economics and Social Sciences from the University of Graz (Austria). Almina’s main research and teaching interests are linked to the integration of migrants and refugees at the labour market as well as more broadly international human resource management issues. Almina has gained research and work experience in different countries, including Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Belgium and the United Kingdom.

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Metin Çorabatır

Mr. Metin Çorabatır is an expert on asylum and migration issues. He is currently the President of the Research Centre on Asylum and Migration (IGAM), an Ankara based, independent think-thank NGO established in June 2013. IGAM works mainly on refugee protection, livelihood, and education sectors. Social cohesion, integration, and public advocacy sectors. He worked for 18 years as the spokesperson and external relations officer of the UNHCR Office in Turkey until his retirement in June 2013. He has 18 years of previous experience in journalism and worked for print media, TVs, Magazines as diplomatic correspondent, foreign news and news editor, and TV producer. Among the recent publications, he is the co-editor of report by Oxford Refugee Studies centre mapping up the level of access of Syrian young refugees to education in host countries, Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq; A research for the mapping of the data on Turkish migration and to prepare a template for Turkey’s Annual Migration Report for the Directorate General of Migration Management.

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Camilla Devitt

Camilla Devitt is Assistant Professor in the Sociology Department, Trinity College Dublin. Her research focuses on the politics of immigration and social policies in Western Europe, with particular interests in labour migration, labour markets and healthcare. Her research also investigates the determinants of immigration, migrant experiences in Western European labour markets and social attitudes. Her work has appeared in various academic journals including the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Journal of Immigrant and Refugee Studies, Socio-Economic Review, Social Politics, Journal of European Social Policy and Social Policy and Administration.

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Dr Claudia Diaz

Claudia M. Diaz-Rios holds a PhD in political science. She is an assistant professor in Educational Leadership and Policy at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (University of Toronto). Her work combines methodological and theoretical insights from comparative politics and comparative education to 1) trace the processes through which global recommendations of education governance have been translated in low- and middle-income countries, particularly in Latin America; and 2) identify and theorize about the factors that shape education responses in the context of global crises and uncertainty. She publishes regularly in journals in the field of comparative and international education, comparative public policy, and education policy, and has a forthcoming book titled Mechanisms of Translation: Global Ideas of Education Policy in Latin America with SUNY Press as part of the series of the Comparative and International Education Society ‘Education in Global Perspective’. Dr. Diaz-Rios is also in the advisory board for the Journal of Education Policy. Currently, she is the principal investigators of two projects funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada: a two-year project titled ‘Government Responses to the education of Migrant Children in the Global South: the Case of Colombia’, and a three-year project titled ‘In the Wake of a Pandemic: International organizations and educational change in four countries, post-COVID-19”.

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Buket Bahar Dıvrak

Buket Bahar Dıvrak assumed her duties as ASAM Deputy General Coordinator in January 2019. She is responsible for leveraging strategic partnerships and fundraising operations in ASAM as well as supervising large-scale programs focusing on education, skills development and social cohesion of refugee communities implemented in partnership with UN Agencies and other international organizations. As a part of the General Coordination Team, she supervises ASAM’s field operations across Türkiye conducted by more than 2000 staff members. She is also supervising the activities of ASAM Belgium and ASAM Greece representations.

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Catriona Fraser

Catriona is a Migrant Workers Researcher at the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre, where she works on the organisation’s global migration strategy. Catriona’s research focuses on advancing the rights of migrant workers by strengthening corporate transparency and improving corporate accountability for alleged abuses, and amplifying the voices and experiences of migrant workers to provide a human face to the term “migrant worker”. Her research focuses on industries that are increasingly dependent on migrant labour, with a particular emphasis on migration corridors to the Gulf and to Europe. Her research includes tracking the risk of labour exploitation for refugees in Europe in the context of rising conflict and border tensions. Catriona holds an MSc (Dist.) in Migration Studies from the University of Oxford, where her research focused on naturalisation and migrant rights in Europe and the USA.

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David Jepson

David Jepson is a director and policy advisor with ACH/Himilo which is a social enterprise that gives support to around 2500 refugees and migrants every year. David is also a principal associate of EURADA (European Association of Development Agencies) and has worked in local economic development and labour market consultancy in the UK and internationally for thirty years.  This includes a number of projects on aspects of local and regional development in Turkey. He was previously a national expert in the European Commission and an elected member of a major local authority for more than ten years.

David has worked on a number of programmes which aim to ensure that newly arrived communities attain economic opportunity in the local economy. This includes entrepreneurship support, careers advice, language support and training through ACH which is mostly delivered by staff with lived experience and close community links. David is also leading an initiative to work directly with employers in health and social care and in hospitality around recruitment and progression at work for newly arrived communities. David is also joint organizer of a seminar series on aspects of migration with the University of Bristol Migrant Mobilities Bristol Research Institute (https://migration.bristol.ac.uk/) has delivered a paper at the workshop at the University of Bologna in April 2023 (MIG.EN.CUBE - fostering MIGrant ENtrepreneurship inCUBation in Europe (unibo.it)) and organised a workshop on refugee entrepreneurship with the District Governor of Pendik, Istanbul in November 2022. David’s specific interests include the relationship between research, policy formation and delivery; the relationship between economic engagement and civic participation and rights; precarity and economic opportunity for refugee and migrant communities and also the links between access to employment and entrepreneurship.

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Omar Kadkoy

Omar Kadkoy is a project manager at the Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey (TEPAV). He works on migration with a focus on the socio-economic dynamics of the forcibly displaced populations. His research interests are labor market integration and naturalization policies for Syrians under Temporary Protection in Turkey. He is a graduate of the Middle East Technical University (METU), Department of International Relations.

 

Gizem Karslı

Gizem Karslı is currently employed at the International Labour Organisation (ILO), where she serves as a Programme Officer focusing on activation programs, with a special emphasis on forced displacement and youth employment. Her responsibilities also include cooperation in mixed migration contexts. Within this scope, she led the South-South Technical Cooperation Initiative between Türkiye and Colombia, which focused on providing decent job opportunities for forcibly displaced persons.

Before joining the ILO, Ms Karslı worked at the World Food Programme, where she contributed to the implementation of the largest basic needs assistance program in the humanitarian sector. Prior to her involvement with the United Nations, she served in the Turkish Parliament as a parliamentary advisor, overseeing legislative activities related to migration, employment, and gender equality. Alongside her professional career, Ms Karslı has been an active participant in civil society. She served a two-year term on the board of Amnesty International Turkey. Ms Karslı holds a Bachelor’s degree in linguistics and education sciences from Hacettepe University, and she earned her master’s degree from Middle East Technical University, where she specialised in labour market integration through activation programmes.

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Marie Martin

Ms Marie Martin works at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe as a co-Secretary at the Committee on Migration, Refugees and Displaced Persons. Before undertaking her role at PACE, Ms Martin worked as a researcher and programme coordinator with grassroots organisations and civil society networks promoting and defending the rights of refugees and migrants in the MENA region, in Southeast Asia and across Europe. She graduated from Sussex University and hold an MA in Migration Studies.

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Dr Michelle Richey

Michelle Richey is Senior Lecturer at Loughborough University Business School where she researches inclusive entrepreneurship and social innovation. She has led several national and international studies of refugee entrepreneurship and is a Working Group Chair for the Refugee Entrepreneurship Network. Her work has been featured in The Conversation, on BBC World Service and published in scholarly journals including International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour and Research, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, IT and People and Information System Frontiers. 

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Dr Selin Siviş

Selin Siviş received her PhD from the Department of Sociology, at the University of Essex, in 2021. In her research, she focuses on how the boundary-making process takes place in multiple forms from perspectives of host population towards refugees and asylum-seekers in the informal market economy. She currently works as Senior Research Fellow in Qualitative Research at the University of Bristol.  Prior to the current position, she worked as post-doctoral researcher at the Department of Communication, University of Vienna. She also held visiting research fellow positions at the University of Konstanz, Germany, Yaşar University in İzmir and Çukurova University in Adana, Turkey. Her areas of interest include cultural sociology, international migration, informal market economy, local labour market integration policies, welfare deservingness, multiple forms of exclusion, aspirations and boundary-making. She published articles in Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Journal of Refugee Studies and International Migration. 

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Rami Sharrack

Rami Sharrack was born in Aleppo, Syria, in 1974, He received the BSc. in Economic studies from Aleppo University, in 1999, Diploma in Strengthening the business climate in MENA region, in 2016; and Diploma in Advanced Studies in Civilian Peacebuilding programs, from University of Basel, 2017.  Rami is energetic, initiative, entrepreneurial and collaborative, never gives up and is constantly in search of creative solutions, he has strong skills in conceptualizing and implementing feasible strategies while facilitating smooth execution of high profile projects.  He is also specialised on Syrian Entrepreneurship and private sector, strategic planning, building coalition and public speaking.

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Dr Vildan Taşlı Karabulut

Dr Vildan Taşlı Karabulut graduated from Middle East Technical University in Turkey with a degree in Business Administration. She then completed her Master's degree in Asian Studies at the same university. She pursued an MSc in International Human Resources Management and Comparative Industrial Relations at Alliance Manchester Business School, University of Manchester, UK. Later, she received her PhD from the same institution, studying skill development strategies of multinational companies in a host country. Dr Taşlı Karabulut's research interests focus on vocational education and training, skill development, multinational companies, and VET and employment of refugees. She has published in leading journals specializing in industrial relations and vocational education and training, including the Journal of Vocational Education & Training and the Industrial Relations Journal. Notable works include "State-led vocational education and training in Turkey through the lens of capability approach: strategically important but not commonly shared," published in 2022, and "Multinational corporations as institutional entrepreneurs: the dynamic interplay between automobile firms and the Turkish vocational education and training system," published in 2020.

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Dr Gerasimos Tsourapas

Gerasimos Tsourapas is a Senior Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Glasgow. He works on the international relations of the Middle East and the broader Global South, with a particular focus on the politics of migrants, refugees, and diasporas. Dr Tsourapas is the author of The Politics of Migration in Modern Egypt – Strategies for Regime Survival in Autocracies (Cambridge University Press, 2018) and Migration Diplomacy in the Middle East and North Africa – Power, Mobility, and the State(Manchester University Press, 2021). He co-edited, with Prof Maria Koinova, a special issue on 'Diasporas and Sending States in World Politics' for International Political Science Review. His work has also appeared in International Studies Quarterly, European Journal of International Relations, International Migration Review, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, and other leading journals. He is currently the Principal Investigator of a five-year European Research Council Starting Grant project on migration diplomacy. He is a Senior Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy, and has been elected as the incoming Chair of the Ethnicity, Nationalism, & Migration Studies (ENMISA) Section of the International Studies Association (2023–25).

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Önder Yalçın

Önder Yalçın is the Director of the Migration Department for the City of Gaziantep, Turkey, a city that hosted half a million refugees after the Syrian civil war. In his role, Yalçın contributes to the development of guidelines for refugee response planning, implements projects to assess and meet the needs of refugees and host communities, and collaborates with national ministries, NGOs, and UN agencies. Yalçın received an M.A. in Political Science and International Relations from HKU, Gaziantep, as well as a B.A. in Social Work from Hacettepe University, Ankara. He was a Fulbright Hubert H. Humphrey fellow at AUWCL in Washington DC, USA. During his time in the USA he joined German Marshall Fund of the United States as a visiting fellow. Currently, he is a PhD candidate at the Sociology Department of Gaziantep University.

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Keynote Speaker: Prof Neli Demireva

Neli Demireva is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Essex. Her research focuses on vulnerable local communities, migration, inter-ethnic ties, social cohesion, ethnic penalties and multiculturalism. From 2015 to 2019, she led the GEMM project: “GEMM: Growth, Equal Opportunities, Migration and Markets”. The project addressed the challenges and barriers that European countries face in managing the mobility of persons to realize competitiveness and growth. Her work has been featured in the Independent, the Guardian, and TEDx among others. She is an Associate Editor of Migration Studies.  She has been invited to speak about migrant integration at the European Ideas Network Seminar in the European Parliament, the European Commission and at the Global Empowerment Meeting 2018 of the Harvard Kennedy School.