FASS Professor to Research Europe Immigration Issues

An internationally acknowledged expert on the economics of immigration from the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences is to co-lead a $4.5 million international research project looking at the impacts of immigrant diversity in Europe.

Professor Jacques Poot of the Population Studies Centre will spend three months each year over the next four years at VU University in the Netherlands, which is co-ordinating the Migrant Diversity and Regional Disparity in Europe research project. 

He will be working with researchers from the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, Finland and Estonia to assess how the scale and diversity of migrant populations in Europe affect socioeconomic outcomes.

"We're aiming to get a better understanding of how cross-border population flows into, within and out of Europe affect regional socioeconomic development and disparity," says Prof Poot. "The results may help design the social safety net, the education system and taxation structure in an efficient and just way in the presence of increasing streams of diverse migrants in Europe." 

His research group is one of just 12 selected out of 240 to receive funding from the European research funding body, NORFACE, to study immigration in Europe.