Date and Time: January 15th from 13:00 to 14:00 (CET)

Press here to access the webinar via zoom

The webinar will be dedicated to researchers' perspectives on refugee access to higher education. There is no need to register.

We are delighted to host Katrin Sontag, Universität Basel and Isshane Otmani, Swiss school of public administration, who will share their research work and try to reflect on the blind spots of research on refugee access to HE.

Katrin Sontag is a cultural anthropologist at the University of Basel and a fellow at the nccr – on the move. Her research focuses on migration and mobility in the areas of migration of the highly skilled, forced migration, entrepreneurship, civil society engagement, education, citizenship, and voting rights. 

Her presentation is entitled "University access for students with refugee backgrounds: Challenges and alternative programs"
The presentation draws on research that was done in 2017-18 at a university in Germany, France and Switzerland. It presents a systemic approach of looking at multiple actors involved in the situation of (potential) university students with refugee backgrounds and maps challenges and clashes. It also points to projects that have started outside of single universities.

Ihssane Otmani is a PhD candidate at the Swiss school of public administration (IDHEAP), University of Lausanne. Her PhD thesis, supervised by Prof. Giuliano Bonoli, bears on educational and professional aspirations of refugees in the canton of Vaud, Switzerland.

Her presentation is entitled " Educational and professional aspirations of refugees in the canton of Vaud"

Asylum experience is often accompanied with unprepared mobility, which makes refugee experience different from that of migrants. In the study of refugee integration, the focus on refugees as a heterogeneous group with various backgrounds and life experiences is needed. The agency and more particularly the aspirations of refugees is a less explored perspective in the study of refugee integration especially from a dynamic perspective. The project entitled “Educational and professional aspirations of refugees in the canton of Vaud” seeks to investigate how educational and professional aspirations of refugees evolve and change over time between pre and-post asylum and the factors that shapes these aspirations. The project focuses particularly on how public policies influence refugee educational and professional aspirations. This is particularly important in understanding the different mechanisms behind refugee access to higher education especially in the context of Switzerland where Vocational Education Training (VET) holds an important place in the education system.

Zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/95035853655