Global responsibility is often referred to as an integral part of a university’s internationalization policy. While this is obvious when it comes to specific challenges, such as the integration of refugee students and scholars through rescue policies, it also plays a role when scholars participate in the politically controversial debate on migration. In the aftermath of the arrival of more than a million refugees in Europe in 2015, universities set up numerous programs to welcome refugee students and at-risk scholars. However, questions remain. What are the challenges related to these policies? How have they affected academic life and diversity on campus? And how do the often extremely controversial political debates challenge knowledge production in the higher education sector?

Gülay Çağlar is professor of Political Science with a focus on gender and diversity studies at Freie Universität Berlin. Among other topics, she concentrates her research on the role of scientific knowledge in policy processes, especially in economic policy, and the way public debates influence knowledge production.

Leyla Dakhli is a full-time researcher at the CNRS – Centre Marc Bloch, Berlin. She is a specialist in the social and intellectual history of the Arab World and is currently leading a research program funded by the European Research Council on the Arab revolts since the 1950’s. She has also initiated, together with Pascale Laborier, a research program on rescue policies in academia since the 1970’s.

Michael Keith is Director of the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS) at the University of Oxford. His research focuses on migration related processes of change in urban environments. His next publication will be a book entitled: “Power, Identity and Representation: Race, Governance and Mobilisation in British Society.”

The debate will be chaired by Florian Kohstall, head of Welcome@FUBerlin-Program and initiator of “Academics in Solidarity”, a mentoring program for at risk and refugee scholars.

Please pre-register via email: cic@fu-berlin.de