On Wednesday, October 26, Dr. Saime Özçürümez, faculty member in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration, delivered a talk on “Refugees and Social Cohesion Policies” as part of the Bilkent Politics Platform Club educational series.
A member of the Mediterranean Dialogue on Asylum and Migration steering committee, the COST Action on Transcultural Memory in Europe management committee, the G20 Task Force on Forced Migration and the EU Task Force for Future Research on Migrants, Migration and Integration, Dr. Özçürümez is an expert on immigration and asylum policy.
In her talk, Dr. Özçürümez discussed Turkey’s policies on integration and social cohesion in comparison to those of other countries. Her focus was on crisis response capacity and its aftermath for countries tackling the challenge of mass influx in protracted cross-border conflict. Using her model for emergency response in humanitarian crises, she evaluated Turkey’s policies to promote social cohesion in general and its refugee health policies in particular as effective in preventing major outbreaks of communicable diseases and managing perinatal care despite an unprecedented influx of people over a short period of time. At the end of her talk, Dr. Özçürümez also propounded several questions regarding the role of academics alongside NGOs, INGOs and policymakers in designing effective policies for refugee populations around the world during humanitarian crises.
The presentation was followed by a lively question and answer session, providing a fruitful exchange of ideas on the subject.