The Local Engagement Refugee Research Network (LERRN) has been awarded one of 17 Partnership Grants nationwide.
This global team, with its Secretariat based in the Department of Political Science at Carleton University, will receive $2,499,826 in funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) to support the Reimagining Responses to Forced Migration project.
By mobilizing a global partnership, this initiative seeks to foster an interdisciplinary, collaborative and localized approach to the co-production of knowledge as a way to address the complex challenges of forced migration.
In keeping with the spirit of the grant, which supports new and existing formal partnerships in the social sciences and humanities, the network currently includes 28 organizations and more than 80 individual partners from across Canada and around the world.
Partnering for Better Global Responses
Reimagining Responses to Forced Migration is founded on the shared belief in amplifying the agency of those most affected by displacement and ensuring the meaningful participation of forced migrants as equal partners.
Its goal is for these voices to reliably and substantively inform the global refugee regime, leading to more effective research, policy and practice.
“The privilege of collaborating with refugee-led organizations has reinvigorated my understanding of what it means to be an engaged academic,” said James Milner, project director and professor in the Department of Political Science. “The questions that are raised and how research can so immediately and creatively be translated into opportunities for change is extraordinary.”
Essential to the work is Milner’s partnership with project co-director Rez Gardi, an international human rights lawyer and co-managing director of Refugees Seeking Equal Access at the Table (R-SEAT).
Gardi emphasizes the shifting role of refugees from subjects of research to active participants in decision-making processes.
“We have this transformative opportunity where refugees can come to the table and collectively decide what kind of research projects will benefit them, and how we can amplify the work they’re doing at the grassroots level,” she said.
Together, Milner and Gardi are overseeing 15 working groups within this expansive network, each focused on a particular aspect of the project, whether it be research, knowledge mobilization or training.
While the SSHRC funding will support the project for six years, Carleton’s engagement with R-SEAT predates the grant and reflects a long-term commitment to working together.
To date, they have trained more than 250 advocates with lived experience of displacement, who participate in UNHCR-led meetings in Geneva to share resources and best practices for engaging with the politics of the global refugee regime.
Reducing Barriers to Bring Partners Together
Committed to a truly collaborative process, Carleton recently hosted a three-day hybrid launch event that brought together partners from around the world to formalize the project’s strategic direction.
“The dedication and courage shown by all the different partners really reaffirmed the goals that we had set out for ourselves,” said Gardi.
Of the 80 partners involved, 25 attended in person, while another 35 joined virtually from the Americas, East Africa, the Middle East and Australia. The hybrid setup not only enabled participation from partners unable to travel but, with translation support on Zoom, helped challenge the hegemonic power of English as the primary working language.
“We’re trying to find ways to create these moments of gathering, to share what we’re doing and articulate our common vision,” Milner said, “but to do it in a way that doesn’t exclude partners because of visa and language barriers.”
With the launch event complete, the project is now formally underway with an end date of March 2031.
The Partnership Grant is part of a larger initiative in which the Government of Canada announced more than $268 million in new SSHRC funding to support transformative research projects across the country. This includes $7,415,815 for 36 researchers at Carleton.