While I don’t expect anyone to feel sorry for me, my trip to the 16th Metropolis conference in the Azores Islands last week took 14 hours – and by the time I arrived, hungry and tired, there was nowhere open to get something to eat. Despite the testing start, the conference was an interesting one.
Speaking with policy makers about migration to influence changes in asylum policy
Metropolis is a gathering of academics and policy-makers with the odd person from the voluntary sector thrown in. The idea is to get researchers like myself to speak to policy-makers broadly about migration and to try identify ways to improve policy impacting refugees. Admittedly I’m not sure my workshop, organised by myself and Wendy Searle from the New Zealand Government, swayed the decision makers and will guarantee policy changes for the better, but it was still worthwhile.
Workshops: an opportunity to exchange thoughts on migration and asylum from a global perspective
The three different presentations at our workshop looked at different aspects of refugee integration. As well as mine and Wendy’s, Andreas Cebulla presented findings from the UK Border Agency (UKBA) Survey of New Refugees. Sticking to the 20 minute presentations left lots of room for interesting discussion. And although the questions came from people from four different continents and identified issues very specific to certain countries, they also showed common problems across countries.
Conversations continued long after the workshop, spilling over into dinner. Eating and talking being two of my favourite things, of course I went along. Eating aside, our workshop and the exchanges after were important opportunities to highlight where policy is failing and having a particularly negative impact on refugees. And really, this is what research at Scottish Refugee Council is all about – highlighting problems in the system in the hope that it leads to better policy and improves the lives of asylum seekers and refugees in Scotland and beyond.
