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Applications are invited for a three-year PhD studentship, supported by the College of Business and Social Sciences, to be undertaken within the Centre for Migration and Forced Displacement at Aston University. The studentship is offered in collaboration with the Refugee and Migration Centre.
The position is available to start in January 2024.
Financial support
This studentship includes a fee bursary to cover the home fees rate, plus a maintenance allowance of £18,622 in 2023/4.
Overseas applicants may apply for this studentship, but will need to pay the difference between the ‘Home’ and the ‘Overseas’ tuition fees. Currently the difference between ‘Home’ and the ‘Overseas’ tuition fees is £10,738 in 2023/4. As part of the application, you will be required to confirm that you have applied for or secured this additional funding.
Background to the project
In the United Kingdom refugee arrival and dispersal policies are legislated at the national level, but the delivery of these policies unfolds at the local level. Unpacking how local authorities and what Phillimore (2012) identifies as Migrant Refugee Community Organizations (MRCOs) deliver these policies remains a site of contestation and exploration. This research project acknowledges the Home Office Indicators of Integration Framework (2019) that provides a broad definition of refugee integration noting its multidimensional nature paying particular attention to the relationally embedded within integration. The document also highlights the contextual nature of a refugee integration journey and acknowledges that those who are best place to understand and support integration are those on the front line.
Working in partnership with the Refugee and Migrant Centre (RMC) and the Centre for Migration and Forced Displacement, this project unpacks the relationship between local authorities and MRCOs. It builds on the emerging work of ‘the everyday’ (Beattie, Eroukmanhoff & Head (2019)) and begins by locating the intricacies of everyday bureaucrats (Lipsky (2012)) to identify the entanglements of power in local migration ecosystem. It asks:
- How do the stories of lived experiences of MRCO employees constitute the relationship between their organizations and the local authority?
- How do MRCOs identify strategic operational goals and support their clients within the local migration ecosystem?
- How are the migrant communities’ experiences shaped and unpacked within the entanglements of the local authority and MRCOs?
- How is the system set up (barriers, challenges and opportunities) so that when unpacked it can lead to the improvement of implementation refugee arrival and dispersal policies?
The successful candidate will possess the ability to work with a mixed methodology (qualitative and quantitative skills) to engage with these research questions. The project will be underpinned by ethnographic research opportunities as the candidate will be embedded in the Refugee and Migrant Centre to understand its daily operations, supporting clients, and working in the wider Birmingham Migration Network. This will provide opportunities for open ended interviews (RQ1 and RQ2) with employees and volunteers within the organizations. Further opportunities for interviews with everyday bureaucrats will emerge as the candidate sets in the wider partnerships of CMFD and RMC. Quantitative analysis of RMC data (RQ3) will provide insights into the impact of RMC services to clients. These findings will compliment RQ1 and RQ2 and evidence best practice to the work done by RMC and how to further support clients and leverage relationships with local authorities (RQ4).
A placement with the Refugee Migrant Centre, and access to their data will provide the locus for data collection. This will be overseen by a named supervisor within the organization. A PhD student embedded within the organization would be expected to:
- Commence work in June 2024
- Spend an initial period of up to 3 months, undergoing induction across the organization’s offices.
- Become familiar with RMC processes and systems, shadow a range of staff, familiarize themselves with policies and codes of practice, and get some feel for how the organization operates, how it is funded, who commissions its services, what those services are, who the clients are.
- Gain an understanding of the data that the organization collects.
- Work closely with a named member of senior staff to discuss and inform the work.
Alongside the completion of the PhD, the candidate is expected to produce a report in Year Three. This report would incorporate;
- Exposing and remedying weaknesses around data recording at RMC;
- Proposing amendments around measuring and describing impact particularly around economic impact to demonstrate financial savings to statutory sector organizations due to RMC’s work;
- Assessing the impact of RMC’s work; particularly focusing on their clients who have irregular immigration status;
- Informing a more effective delivery of RMC’s work;
- Making any further suggestions around data collection and its use to describe impact.
Person specification
The successful applicant should have been awarded, or expect to achieve, a Masters degree in a relevant subject with an overall degree classification of at least Merit (or an equivalent qualification from an overseas institution) in Politics, International Relations, Sociology, or a relevant degree with work experience. Preferred skill requirements include knowledge/experience of UK Asylum policies, procedures and practices, as well as experience working in the third sector.
