One of the first activities undertaken by the RMS Hub is the organisation of a Summer School in Refugee and Migration Studies as a joint project with the François-Xavier Bagnoud (FXB) Center for Health and Human Rights, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health with the support of the Harvard Center for Hellenic Studies in Greece and the US.
The Summer School in Refugee and Migration Studies is organized annualy and consists of an intensive three-week program run in Athens, Nafplion and Lesvos that combines lectures, seminars and fieldwork, with a multidisciplinary curriculum drawing upon the legal, political, medical and communication aspects of the migratory flows phenomenon. The aim is to enable participants to understand the nature of both internal and international forced migration in contexts of conflict, environmental degradation and natural disasters, poverty etc. Experience on the field has shown that it is practically impossible to address the crucial challenges created by refugee/migratory flows without a more holistic understanding of the causes and effects of such movements, the international legal framework regulating them or indeed any lack thereof, the practical issues of addressing the health and welfare needs of humanity in the move and the communication tools available to shape the perception of such movements by the wider public and the body politic. We offer an interdisciplinary programme addressed to all students, researchers and young scholars of law, political and social sciences, medicine and media from universities in Greece and abroad but also to practitioners in the field, international organisations personnel and NGOs staff wish to understand this important new parameter in the world stage. The working language is English.