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Since mid-March, Bruno Meeus is the project coordinator of the new focus area Migration and Societal Change. The focus area promotes interdisciplinary collaboration between Utrecht ľ¹Ï¸£ÀûÓ°ÊÓ researchers, students, and societal stakeholders. More than hunderd scholars from various fields such as anthropology, history, human geography, social and behavioural sciences, law, linguistics, media studies, philosophy, and religious studies, collaborate to gain new insights about migration.

‘I am really happy about my role in this focus area’, says Bruno. ‘I am a social geographer and I have mainly done ethnographic research in cities but encounters and collaborations across my own discipline have always been important sources of inspiration. At the start of my postdoc period I spent some years at an architecture school and I think that my own fascination for the urban ‘arrival infrastructures’ germinated there. A tendency towards interdisciplinary collaboration can also be noticed internationally. Research on migration used to be a fragmented field of study and during the past decade an international research community in ‘migration studies’ that transcends disciplinary boundaries has established itself. I am delighted that the forces are joined at Utrecht ľ¹Ï¸£ÀûÓ°ÊÓ.'

The focus area recently organized a call for seed money for the first time. Eight interdisciplinary projects will be financed by the focus area. The Public Launch featuring guest speaker was planned to take place on 2 April but had to be cancelled.

Bruno: ‘With the board of the focus area we are currently investigating how to continue with the Public Launch. Such an event is important because it indicates the outspoken ambition of the focus area to develop collaborations with the diversifying urban community and societal partners. For that reason we had not only planned academic speakers for the Public Launch , but also an intervention from senior policy advisor Jan Braat at the City of Utrecht.’