UNIL seizes CIVIS Seed Funding opportunities to facilitate access for migrants to the university
"Supporting access to lifelong learning for vulnerable migrants" project team is formed of researchers and practitioners from UNIL, Bucharest, Glasgow, Madrid, and Athens. Supported by CIVIS' Seed Funding research, the project born from the common interest in access to higher education for vulnerable people - including refugees and migrants - perfectly illustrates the spirit of CIVIS: bringing together people from diverse backgrounds around a major societal issue.
This initiative is fully in line with CIVIS's mission, which promotes a civic university at the service of society. It's objective is to combine scientific expertise and practical experience to design effective integration programmes and measure their long-term effects", explains Léa Moreau, research assistant at UNIL.
The project team met in person for the first time last autumn in Lausanne, for two days of discussions. The meeting provided an opportunity to share experiences and research conducted within each institution, while laying the foundations for a lasting collaboration. The discussions highlighted the importance of dialogue between scientific approaches and field actions in order to design sustainable integration measures.
Building tools for measurable impact
How to evaluate the impact of integration schemes developed by the universities was a major challenge that emerged from the discussions. To explore this question further, the team met again this April for a Staff Training Week - From Ideas to Action: A Collaborative Space to Develop Participatory Research Project. One of the meeting's objectives was to develop a toolbox listing good practices in order to optimise access and support for migrants in higher education.
A new meeting is planned in May in Glasgow to finalise the proposals from Staff Week and submit them to the Open Labs call for projects. The ambition is clear: to sustain this momentum and implement concrete actions to make higher education more accessible to all.
We hope that this project will help open up new perspectives for populations that are often excluded ," concluded Léa Moreau.
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