The AFAR project consists of five different work packages, each (co-) led by members of the AFAR team:
Work Package O | NewGen
Leads: Prof. Cathryn Costello and Prof. Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen
This work package focuses on activities to train a new generation of scholars working on the intersection of new technologies and migration and asylum. In addition to supervision of doctoral students and postgraduate researchers, the AFAR team members will organise a number of specific activities. The first of these includes creating a Methods Training Programme and AFAR Curriculum. The second is an online course on Human Rights and New Technologies, provided by the Hertie Centre for Fundamental Rights. This course will also be tailored as a module to be taught at the Refugee Studies Centre’s Summer School on Forced Migration and as an intensive three-day executive training course organised by the Migration Policy Centre, European University Institute. In addition, invited commentators will present their work in work-in-progress sessions throughout the project duration.
Work Package 1 | Newtech Mapping
Lead: Dr. Derya Ozkul
In this work package, Dr Derya Ozkul will undertake the mapping of current practices of new technologies in European immigration and asylum systems. The exercise will identify the key AFAR case studies for further postdoctoral and doctoral studies. It will also lead to the publication of a comprehensive, publicly available research report.
Work Package 2 | Fairness Standards and Newtech Practices
Leads: Prof. Cathryn Costello, Prof. Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen and Prof. Iris Goldner Lang
This work package focuses on research on fairness standards and new tech practices. Particular areas of focus include fairness in procedures, asylum decision making, and responsibility-sharing across places of refuge. This work package will include the creation of the Newtech Online Caselaw Digest, a compendium of pertinent case law where practices of new technologies have been challenged, in particular under human rights and data protection law. The results from this work package will be published in a planned co-edited Special Issue on New Technologies in Asylum and Migration Governance.
Work package 3 | Fairness Perceptions
Leads: Prof. Martin Ruhs and Dr. Derya Ozkul
This work package focuses on research on perceptions of fairness. Prof Martin Ruhs will lead research on the question of how the European public perceives new technologies. Dr Derya Ozkul will explore how asylum seekers and refugees experience and perceive new technologies. This strand of research will employ mixed methods and qualitative methods, including in-depth interviews.
Work package 4 | Reform for Fairness
Leads: Prof. Iris Goldner Lang and Prof. Cathryn Costello
This work package will identify how new technologies may enhance or undermine fairness in European migration and asylum governance. Based on research findings from the previous three work packages, this work package will identify areas for reform in three domains: the European migration and asylum governance and the role of new technologies therein; the regulation of new technologies; and the potential and limits of designing new technologies for fairness in these systems.
Funding
This project has received 1.5 million Euros in funding from the Volkswagen Foundation through its “Challenges for Europe” funding programme.
