AWR

Forschungsgesellschaft für das Weltflüchtlingsproblem

Call for Papers

68th AWR International Migration Conference                                                               

24-26th May 2023

Technical University of Applied Sciences Würzburg-Schweinfurt, Faculty Applied Social Sciences,

Münzstr. 12, 97070 Würzburg, Germany

SAVE THE DATE AND CALL FOR PAPERS

Safe, Orderly and regular migration (SORM):
Transnational skill partnerships

www.awr-int.de

Chair:        Prof. Dr. Ralf Roßkopf (THWS, Germany / GJU, Jordan)

Co-chair:   Prof. Dr. Simone Emmert, LL.M.Eur. (TH Nürnberg Georg Simon Ohm, Germany)

The 2023 “SORM Conference” is a three-day multidisciplinary scientific international conference hosted by THWS during its International Week 2023 in cooperation with the Association for the Study of the World Refugee Problem (AWR) and the German Jordanian University (GJU). Streamed hybrid for a global audience, speakers are expected to contribute physically. The conference is structured in six sessions: (1) Partnership Framework; (2) Project Examples; (3) Levelling Barriers; (4) Transnational Education; (5) Regions: MENA; (6) Regions: Sub-Saharan Africa; (7) Open session for CfP contributions. Contributions and conclusions are collected for publication in the Quarterly on Refugee Problems (QRP).

Five years after the endorsement of the 2018 Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM, A/Res/73/195), the envisioned outcome of the conference is a thematic and inclusive contribution to the development of its objective 18 “Invest in skills development and facilitate mutual recognition of skills, qualifications and competences”, and specifically the topic of transnational skill partnerships.

The scientific objectives are six-fold:

  1. Evaluation of transnational skills partnerships’ claim to create a triple win for countries of origin, countries of destination and migrant workers.
  2. Evaluation of needed transnational management structures.
  3. Identification of the potentials, limits and needed arrangements for transnational skill partnerships on the levels of skilled workers and academic degree holders.
  4. Evaluation of transnational education institution as hubs for skill partnerships.
  5. Evaluation of potentials, limitations and needed arrangements for transnational skill partnerships with the MENA and Sub-Saharan African regions.
  6. Creation of a scientific network on transnational skill partnerships as a contribution to save, orderly and regular migration.

IOM[1] has outlined the concept of “safe, orderly and regular migration” as such (references ommitted):

“Migration features as a key cross-cutting theme in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. SDG target 10.7 calls for States to “facilitate orderly, safe, and responsible migration and mobility of people, including through implementation of planned and well-managed migration policies” within Goal 10 on reducing inequalities. Through this goal and its contingent target, States acknowledge that good migration governance is a key element for safer, more orderly and more regular migration.

Orderly Migration: IOM defines orderly migration as “the movement of a person from his or her usual place of residence to a new place of residence, in keeping with the laws and regulations governing exit of the country of origin and travel, transit and entry into the host country.” This definition underlines the State’s right to regulate entry as a basis for being able to ensure migrants’ proper treatment, granting rights, enforcing law, managing relationships with host communities.

Regular migration: Regular migration is defined as “migration that occurs through recognized, authorized channels.” The regularity of migration does not only refer to the method used to cross a country’s border, as migrants can enter into a country through regular channels, but find themselves in an irregular situation after a certain period.

Safe Migration: There is no common definition for the concept of “safe migration.” When using the term, it is important to understand that a migrant can be in an unsafe situation while or after having migrated through regular channels; and conversely, a migrant can be in a situation that is both safe and irregular. “Safe migration” is not a static concept. The situation of migrants can change from safety, to unsafety throughout the various phases of their migratory process. Moreover, while the concepts of ‘orderly’ and ‘regular’ migration have a normative character, the concept of “safe migration” primarily concerns the well-being of migrants.”

Skill partnerships can be defined as follows:

“The heart of a Global Skill Partnership is a pre-migration agreement between two countries. The governments and any private-sector partners agree on who at the destination will help finance migrants’ training, what portion of training will occur at the origin and to what standard, who will offer employment at the destination under what conditions, and how the benefits of skilled migration will support training for non-migrants. The agreement shapes the financing for training skilled migrants in such a way that it creates, rather than depletes, human capital in the origin country. At the same time it meets the needs of the destination country while opening opportunities for migrants.”[2]

The commitment

“to invest in innovative solutions that facilitate mutual recognition of skills, qualifications and competences of migrant workers at all skills levels, and promote demand-driven skills development to optimize the employability of migrants in formal labour markets in countries of destination and in countries of origin upon return, as well as to ensure decent work in labour migration”

is the outline for Objective 18 GCM (A/Res/73/195). While implicitly addressed in many subsequently listed actions of Item 34 GCM, skill partnership agreements and network-building are expressly referred to in lit. (c), (e), (f), (g). ILO, IOM, UNESCO, IOE, and ITUC formed a Global Skills Partnership (GSP)

“to mobilize technical expertise of the three organizations towards supporting governments, employers, workers and their organizations, educational institutions and training providers, and other stakeholders to develop and recognize the skills of migrant workers with a particular focus on women and youth.”[3] (ILO et al. n.d.).

In distinction to this, we rather refer to the more limited term of “transnational skill partnerships”.

AWR has its origins in the Association for the Study of the European Refugee Problem (AER), founded in 1950, and in 1961 merged with the Association for the Study of the World Refugee Problem (AWR), founded in 1954. As the first international research association in the field of forced migration, it is based on its international and interdisciplinary network and offers a platform for dialogue for scientists and practitioners.

1        CfP axes 

Contributions should cover one of the following axes from their SORM perspective:

  1. How to Govern: Needed Follow-up and Desiderata of Skilled Workers Immigration Reforms
  • Benefitting sustainable development
  • Studies and evaluations of reforms (in different countries)
  1. How to Administer and Counsel: Revisiting Responsibilities, Structures and Processes in the Immigration Society
  • Knowledge and Diversity Management
  • Health
  1. How to Recruit and Keep Them: Making Skilled Workers Want to Join and Stay
  • Knowledge and Diversity Management
  • (Female) Leadership
  • Health
  1. How to Tell My People: Realistic Narratives
  • Creating Awareness and Acceptance for Immigration in the Receiving Society
  • “Narratives of immigration success stories”, their Evaluation and background from the Sending Society

2        Call for paper, panel or workshop proposal

You can submit either an individual paper, panel or workshop proposal (all sessions, framing several related contributions will be assigned 90 minutes each) for a single-blind review:

  • Categories of proposals:
  • Single paper proposal online form (each paper: 20 min., plus 10 min. discussion)
  • Panel proposal online form (each panel: 90 min. incl. discussion)
  • Workshop proposal online form (each workshop: 90 min.)
  • Your proposal submission needs to contain:
  • Names and email addresses of the presenters or primary organizer and the co-organizer (if available, we prefer two presenters or organizers in case of unforeseen circumstances)
  • The proposed title of the paper, panel or workshop proposal
  • The matching conference topics
  • A 500-word abstract of your paper for the conference programme
  • Submission deadline for proposal: 15 February 2023
  • E-Mail for submission: info@awr-int.de
  • Single-blind review
  • Acceptance/rejection letters: until 15 March 2023
  • Submission deadline for presentation:20th May 2023
  • Submission deadline for paper: 30th June 2023
  • Papers need to meet the template and style guidelines to be accepted.
  • Papers shall be between 10-20 pages.
  • Only papers meeting the deadline will be accepted.

3        Conference Working Sessions

Contributions from the CfP will be scheduled for May 26, 2023. Single papers, panels and workshops will be grouped together thematically throughout the conference program in working sessions.

4        Publication

All accepted and submitted papers are supposed to be published in the double blind peer-reviewed Quarterly on Refugee Problems – AWR Bulletin (QRP; https://ejournals.bibliothek.fhws.de/qrp/
index).

5        Conference Fees

  • Regular: 80 EURO
  • AWR Members: 40 EURO
  • Global South: FREE
  • Students: FREE

6        Scientific Committee

  • Prof. Dr. Sahar Al-Makhamreh, German Jordanian University, Jordan
  • Prof. Dr. Markus Babo, Catholic University of Applied Sciences Munich, Germany
  • Prof. Dr. Raffaele Cadin, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy
  • Prof. Dr. Simone Emmert, LL.M.Eur., Technische Hochschule Nürnberg Georg Simon Ohm, Germany
  • Prof. Dr. Barbara Franz, Rider University, U.S.A.
  • Dr. Friedegard Föltz, Friedensau Adventist University, Germany
  • Dr. Reká Friedery, CSS, Hungarian Academy of Sciences Centre for Excellence, Hungary
  • Prof. Dr. Christine Hildebrandt, German Jordanian University, Jordan
  • Asst. Prof. Dr. Bader Madi, German Jordanian University, Jordan
  • Prof. Dr. Uzoma Okoye, University of Nigeria Nsukka, Nigeria
  • Prof. Dr. Luigino Manca, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy
  • Prof. Dr. Ralf Roßkopf, Technical University of Applied Sciences Würzburg-Schweinfurt, Germany, and German Jordanian University, Jordan
  • Prof. Dr. Sibylle Wollenschläger, Technical University of Applied Sciences Würzburg-Schweinfurt, Germany

7         Registration

Will be opened soon through a separate conference webpage hosted by THWS.

[1] IOM. (n.d.). Facilitation of safe, regular and orderly migration. Global Compact Thematic Paper. https://www.iom.int/sites/g/files/tmzbdl486/files/our_work/ODG/GCM/IOM-Thematic-Paper-Facilitation-of-Safe-Orderly-and-Regular-Migration.pdf.

[2] Clemens, M. A. (2015). Global skill partnerships. A proposal for technical training in a mobile world. IZA Journal of Labor Policy 4(2), 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40173-014-0028-z.

[3] ILO, et al (n.d.). Global skills partnership on migration. Key message from partners. https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/—ed_emp/—ifp_skills/documents/publication/wcms_653993.pdf.

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