Building futures: Aspirations of Syrian youth refugees and host population responses in Lebanon, Greece and the UK
Dr Ben Colburn (Glasgow, CEPA Visiting Professor, Liverpool Hope)

16:00 – 17:30 (GMT)
Face to face: Hope Park Campus, L16 9JD, Eden Building 044 
ZOOM: https://hope.zoom.us/j/85705879004?pwd=YVR3Vm5RUEpsRDVGcG5pR09TbWphQT09
Meeting ID: 857 0587 9004 Password: 939394
 
The Building Futures Project ran from 2016 to 2018, funded by the Global Challenges Research Fund through the AHRC and the ESRC. It was the most comprehensive assessment of the skills, training needs, work aspirations, lived experiences, and ethical perspectives of young Syrian forced migrants as they attempt to rebuild their lives in three host countries: a neighbouring host state (Lebanon), the main entry point to Europe (Greece), and a north European destination state (the United Kingdom – UK). It was also the first to offer a parallel exploration of the attitudes of host populations towards the displaced people in their midst in the respective countries. It was run by an interdisciplinary research team with expertise spanning economics, education and training, ethics, migration studies, political philosophy, political science, and sociology, and in cooperation with partners SolidarityNow (Greece), Educart –the Center for Educational Consultation and Research (Lebanon), the Red Cross (UK) and the Scottish Refugee Council (UK).
 
This talk highlights some of the project’s findings with regards to policy in the UK, especially concerning resettlement routes and training and skills for young forced migrants. It also draws on some (as yet unpublished) data from the project to show some of the interesting patterns of similarity and difference in the ethical perspectives of migrant and home populations. Finally, I also share some reflections on the process of designing and implementing a large multi-disciplinary research project, with multiple NGO partners, and suggest some lessons we might draw about how to put philosophy – and academic research more generally! – to use in solving these urgent humanitarian problems.
 
Professor Ben Colburn is CEPA Visiting Professor at Liverpool Hope, and Professor of Political Philosophy at the University of Glasgow. He is the author of Autonomy and Liberalism (Routledge, 2010) and co-author of a 2018 report for Policy Scotland, ‘Building a New Life in Britain: The Skills, Experiences and Aspirations of Young Syrian Refugees’.

For further inquiries tillsoj@hope.ac.uk