The ADMIGOV consortium

The Institute of European Studies (IEE) and Centre for Research in International Politics (REPI) of the ULB will participate in the international consortium Advancing Alternative Migration Governance (ADMIGOV), led by the University of Amsterdam (UvA). This project has received a subsidy of €3 million under the Horizon 2020 programme of the European Commission, for a duration of 4 years.

Objectives of the project

The ADMIGOV consortium will investigate the conformity of European asylum and migration policy in practice with the basic principles laid down by the United Nations in the 2016 New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants and the 2030 Sustainable Development Objectives. More specifically, researchers in the consortium will:

  • Analyse current asylum and migration practices and focus on three basic situations in which EU and national policy are implemented: entry/access to the EU; forced and voluntary departure; innovative possibilities for temporary and circular migration. The team will look in detail at the implementation of two basic principles: the protection principle and the principle to support sustainable development goals through asylum and migration policy. ADMIGOV researchers will also focus on possible tensions between the priorities and practices of European asylum and migration policy and the international obligations and principles to which the EU and the Member States subscribe;
  • Develop recommendations for alternative forms of asylum and migration policy, based on the most up-to-date scientific research and detailed empirical investigation, in order to ensure alignment with said international obligations and principles.

To do so, consortium partners will carry out research in the prosperous parts of the EU (such as Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands) as well as at the edges of EU (Greece, Turkey, Spain and Poland). In addition, ADMIGOV researchers will engage with asylum seekers and migrants en route, and investigate the situation in so-called countries of origin and transit such as Ethiopia, Lebanon and Niger.

Partners

The project is coordinated by Dr. Anja van Heelsum (principal investigator), Dr. Jeroen Doomernik, Dr. Polly Pallister-Wilkins and Dr. Barak Kalir at UvA. The other partners in the consortium are the University of Maastricht (the Netherlands), the University of the Aegean (Greece), Aalborg University (Denmark), the University of Barcelona (Spain), the University of Wroclaw (Poland) and the University of Addis Ababa, as well as Koç University (Turkey), the American University in Beirut (Lebanon), the Clingendael Institute (the Netherlands), the Barcelona Centre for International Affairs (CIDOB, Spain) and the Danish Refugee Council (Denmark).

ADMIGOV at the ULB

european asylum and migration policyThe work of the ULB team will focus in particular on the question of entry and access to the EU in Workpackage 1. Dr. Julien Jeandesboz (IEE/REPI) will coordinate the workpackage and the ULB contribution to the ADMIGOV consortium.

Julien Jeandesboz is a lecturer and researcher in international relations and European Union politics at the ULB, a member of REPI (Recherche et Etudes en Politique Internationale) and the Institute for European Studies (IEE-ULB).

He received his PhD in political science and international relations from Sciences Po, Paris. Prior to the ULB, he worked as assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Amsterdam (UvA) and a research associate in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London. His research interests include critical approaches to security, European Union external action and home affairs, border and migration control, as well as security and technolo