Global Network of Research Centres on Forced Migration

There are now at least two dozen research centres throughout the world focusing at least partly on issues of forced migration. Taken together, they are an extremely rich resource for the field of forced migration. However, as to be expected, there are sharp disparities amongst them, especially between centres of the global South and North in terms of access to resources as well as connectedness to one another and to the field itself. Such disparities are troubling because they reflect, and thus exacerbate, the geo-political dynamics of forced migration. Furthermore, they stunt processes of knowledge dissemination and mobilization between different regions of the world. Given this, the Global Research Network of research centres will facilitate more effective mechanisms of cooperation and connectedness amongst research centres as well as with scholars, NGOs and practitioners working outside of them.
 
The eight initial RRN partners are located in Bogota, Brisbane, Cairo, Calcutta, Johannesburg, Oxford, Tehran, and Washington, D.C. It is expected that they will be joined by others. The deeper the connection between institutions in refugee protecting regions in the South and international associations and institutions, the more successful we will be in finding solutions to refugee problems on our respective doorsteps. Since each of the RRN partner centres has its own network of researchers and students as well as connections with NGOs and policy makers, this network will follow a "cluster of clusters" model, a dynamic web of global connections and relationships that will stimulate the development of new research partnerships and projects and promote the dissemination of findings to stakeholders in the international refugee regime around the world.
 
In addition, this global network of centres will facilitate stronger coordination amongst the various educational programs as well as resource libraries. The network will focus on the communications assets and needs of network members and explore strategies for knowledge exchanges within and between researchers in the Global South and North. In between in-person meetings, the partners will maintain ongoing connections through the development of a virtual research community.