Maria Teresa Veltri
The project aims to identify an innovative link between legal avenues of regular, orderly, and safe access in Europe with community sponsorship, with a focus on the role of tertiary education and universities as sponsors and their contribution to the reception and integration of refugees in Italy.
After mapping and investigating the fragmented complexity of community sponsorship programs at the national and regional levels, the research activity focuses on the practices of EU Member States and third countries in order to identify and define the legal prerequisites for an efficient sponsorship “ecosystem” sustainable and scalable at the European level that can form the basis for supporting and coordinating actions at the interface between EU policies on the integration of third-country nationals, on the one hand, and the future EU framework for resettlement and other legal protection pathways, on the other.
The analysis is based on quantitative/qualitative methods, taking stock of the best practices and challenges of university corridors implemented in Italian universities, and in particular on the social and labor integration and legal status of program beneficiaries.
In this context, the project envisions the following outcomes: (i) development of targeted policies and an implementation framework for work- and education-sponsored pathways in several EU member states; (ii) initiation and strengthening of multi-stakeholder partnerships (governments, international organizations, universities, businesses) on work- and education-related issues; (iii) development of methodologies and tools for the engagement of universities and local communities in public-private partnerships applicable in all countries; (iv) research and exchanges at the European and international level to benefit from the experience gained and to consolidate the EU's leadership role on the world stage.