Migrants and States: The Case of the Mediterranean Basin

July 1-13, 2012

The Migration Research Center at Koç University, MiReKoc organized its second Summer School Program on July 1-13, 2012. Designed as a summer school for graduate and PhD students as well as junior experts in the field, in the premises of Koç University’s main campus in Sarıyer, Istanbul, the program aimed at high-level, research-oriented, interdisciplinary and innovative academic courses on migration as well as workshops on related policy issues for professional development. Lectures and discussions given and led by a distinguished international faculty were also be combined with field trips within Istanbul involving seminars given by policy-makers and implementers.

While applications from all over the world were encouraged, only a few number of applicants admitted on merit were eligible for full scholarship. This year while five scholarships were available for candidates from the Central and Eastern Europe (i.e., Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Czech Republic, Ukraine, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Slovak Republic, Bosnia Herzegovina, and Serbia), other partial scholarships were also granted based on merit. The summer school was conducted in English; readings were also in English. A certificate was provided upon successful completion of the program.

Course offerings took into account the various needs of academic and professional development in the field of international migration across a wide range of disciplines, including anthropology, demography, economics, political science, sociology, and international relations. The program seeked to bring together groups of interested individuals coming from an enormously varied geographical, cultural and academic background to study intensively. The courses were taught by a team of well-known academics in the field who also represented a wide range of countries in an effort to match the diversity of the student body. Such a multi-cultural composition provided a stimulating environment for engaging participants and faculty in an inspiring and enriching dialogue during the summer school on migration-relation issues.

The 2012 MiReKoc International Summer School was a joint effort of the Koç University, the IMISCOE Network, the Turkish Migration Research Group at Oxford University (TurkMis), and the ERSTE Foundation.