LERC participated in the person of Ms. Basma Abdel Khalek in the IV CARIM Summer School on Euro-Mediterranean Migration and Development, Florence, Italy.

7-18 July 2008

Miss Basma Abdel Khalek, Research Assistant at the Lebanese Emigration Research Center (LERC), was chosen among hundreds of international applicants to participate in the IV CARIM Summer School on Euro-Mediterranean Migration and Development that was organized by the Robert Schuman Center for Advanced Studies (RSCAS) at the European University Institute (EUI), Florence, Italy, from 7th till 18th of July 2008.

The Summer School was made up of professors affiliated to various universities in Italy, Spain, Belgium, Great Britain, Egypt, and Turkey, and also lecturers from international organizations such as the European Commission (EC) and the International Labor Organization (ILO).

Miss Abdel Khalek was among MA and PhD participants coming from Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Turkey, Italy, Germany, France, Poland, Greece, Ireland, Moldova, and Mexico. She took part in fifteen different seminars related to migration in the Euro-Mediterranean region. The latter is a burning issue that was studied from numerous perspectives related to demography, social costs, integration, migration policies, economics, return migration, development, labor migration, discrimination, diasporas, and international organization. Theories and study cases were presented in order to obtain an all round view of migration in this specific region.

At the end of the summer school, participants evaluated the whole program, its content and the way it was treated by the lecturers. As all participants were asked to write a research paper on a subject concerned with the migration phenomenon, Miss Abdel Khalek wrote on Transnationalism, Diaspora and Development in the case of Lebanon.

These research papers will be published once approved by a committee of the EUI, and a certificate of accomplishment will be granted to all participants who fulfilled requirements.

The regular participation of LERC in this summer school is a real investment included in a permanent process of building up the capacities of its staff and researchers.