Project description
Mapping networks that enable refugee education pathways
With over 123 million people forcibly displaced worldwide, access to safe and legal migration routes remains limited, and education pathways for refugees are poorly understood. Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the UNPACK-NET project explores how social networks shape refugees’ access to higher education migration pathways in the UK and Australia. It will combine social capital theory, intersectionality, and multilayer network analysis with interviews, surveys, and participatory mapping to study how relationships, identity, and governance interact across different stages of displacement. The findings will be used to create a comparative transnational analysis of education pathways and develop an open-access toolkit for participatory network analysis. Overall, UNPACK-NET helps pave the way for more effective education migration policies for displaced populations.
Objective
Over 123 million people are forcibly displaced worldwide, yet safe and regulated migration routes remain scarce. Education Pathways (EPs)—legal migration channels that enable refugees to enrol in higher education—are expanding under global initiatives such as the 15by30 pledge, but research remains fragmented, narrow, and largely descriptive. Little is known about how refugees mobilise social networks across the migration journey, or how identity factors and governance regimes shape their access to EPs.
UNPACK-NET addresses these gaps by examining how networks enable or constrain refugee participation in EPs in the United Kingdom and Australia, two countries with robust higher education systems and contrasting policy approaches. The project integrates social capital theory, multilayer network analysis, and intersectionality to capture how relationships, resources, and power dynamics operate across pre-, post-, and transnational phases of displacement.
Using a participatory, mixed-methods design—combining social network mapping, interviews, focus groups, and surveys—UNPACK-NET will deliver the first comparative, transnational study of EPs. Outputs include an open-access toolkit for participatory Social Network Analysis and policy-relevant recommendations for ethical and inclusive expansion of EPs.
Hosted by the University of Technology Sydney and the University of Birmingham, with a secondment at ICMC/SHARE Network, the fellowship will strengthen the researcher’s expertise in socio-legal and participatory methods, foster knowledge exchange with global scholars and practitioners, and inform EU and international agendas on migration, education, and inclusion. The project contributes directly to Sustainable Development Goals 4.3 and 10.7 and to Horizon Europe priorities on inclusive societies.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
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Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
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Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-GF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - Global Fellowships
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2025-PF
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
B15 2TT Birmingham
United Kingdom
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.