This proposal seeks to assess how migration governance has been influenced by the recent ‘refugee crisis’, and how crises at large shape policy responses on migration. Since the beginning of the ‘refugee crisis’ in 2014, different policy responses have been put forward by governments and international organisations alike. Albeit very different from one another, these different responses had two common traits: - They were generally presented as the sole realistic solution in the face of a situation that was often characterized as ‘unsustainable’. - They were often geared towards a more efficient control and surveillance of the borders. As the humanitarian crisis and the dire situation in countries such as Italy, Greece or Hungary should have prompted more cooperation in the EU, policy responses usually hinted at less cooperation, with the notable exception of the control and surveillance of the EU external border. This meant that the humanitarian crisis in the Mediterranean soon transformed into a political crisis with the EU, culminating in the Brexit referendum, where the issue of border control played a decisive role in the decision of the British electorate to leave the EU. As an attempt to revive the idea of a global governance of migration, the United Nations issued on 19 September 2016 the New York Declaration, which led to the launch of the Global Compacts on Migration and Refugees - both are them are still being negotiated at the time of submitting this proposal. Therefore, MAGYC seeks to appraise these policy responses in the light of the crisis and assess their efficiency for the long-term governance of migration.

The research project ‘DIVERSIRAN – DIVersification and Economic ReSilience of IRAN’ studies the factors that have shaped Iran's strategies for economic diversification and resilience. Economic diversification in this study is not limited to the traditional definition (i.e. the state’s strategy of diversifying economic activities from the hydrocarbon sector). Instead, it looks for factors shaping the diversification of the economy beyond the country’s borders and their implications on trade and economic partnerships. The project captures all factors that contribute towards shaping development, resilience, and diversification strategies of the Iranian economy. It provides a multifaceted analysis of the impacts of domestic political dynamics, institutional capacity, the military-political-business complex, sanctions, and regional and international affairs on Iran’s economic strategies. By providing a deeper understanding of the current economic mindset and policy implications in Iran, the research applies a forward-looking approach in assessing the long-term impact on the future socioeconomic stability of the country. The project adopts an interdisciplinary mixed-method approach by merging elements of political science, international relations, economics, and development studies. It combines qualitative content analysis of secondary data available in Farsi, English, and Arabic and process tracing in order to assess the causal relationship between factors shaping economic strategies, policy implications, and the long-term socioeconomic impacts in Iran.

We are witnessing the emergence of what is in very important ways essentially a new religion. Digitisation and globalisation have influenced not only social and political practices and organisation, but also religious beliefs and practices. Islam, the Islamic commonwealth and the Muslims, are at the forefront of the most recent developments. Hitherto relatively marginal theological and ideological trends have acquired new prominence within Islam and this new Islam is being disseminated as a brand in an ever-expanding corpus of public images and imaginaries. This newly acquired hyper-visibility is reminiscent of the impact of the printing press on the Catholic church in the 16th century, and its role in the Reform movement. The impact today of technological innovations on the development of Islam requires urgent assessment. The MIDA proposal aims to understand how digitisation is shaping Islam (i.e. beliefs, practices, political and social institutions, and outlooks). How is this technological revolution modifying the relation Muslims have with the past? Why is it reshaping Islam in more profound ways than other monotheisms? We need to understand the developments that are transforming religious belief in our time and to do so scholarship itself needs to seize the resources of the technological revolution that is spurring change. The MIDA project will make possible the necessary training of a group of young researchers, able to answer collectively to the challenge, providing them inter-sectoral, interdisciplinary, international skills. To tackle the complexity of the issue, five interlocking work packages have been designed, each including comparative work on historical case-studies: ‘Narratives of the Self’; ‘Languages and Translation’; ‘Images and Materiality in Islam’; ‘Contested Authority and Knowledge Production’ and ‘Mobility and Mobilisation beyond Borders’.