Creative Network Plus: Baseline Research and Development Project (BREDEP)

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By the end of 2017, persecution, violence and war had forced over 68 million people to flee their home nations and seek safety in foreign countries, which exceeds all previous records for global forced displacement (UNHCR, 2018). Despite of the many refugee-hosting countries (RHC) being low and middle-income countries ( LMICs), often with inadequate resources to meet the demands of this refugee influx. It has been recognised that cultural and creative industries (CCIs) have positively contributed towards fostering intercultural dialogue between host communities and refugees in RHCs (UNESCO, 2018). However, could technologies scale up such creativity to act as an 'enabler' for RY integration or access to vocational education and training (VET) the RHCs? Given the insufficient resources and lack of necessary infrastructure to facilitate much needed inclusive refugee integration systems, and the focus being put on primary and secondary school enrolment as well as humanitarian interventions, there is only weak research evidence from RHCs' perspective.Developed as a part of the GCRF Education in Conflict and Crisis Research portfolio, this project is aimed at providing baseline research for an interdisciplinary arts and social science network plus- (Creative Network) which aims to investigate how innovations in technologies (mobile and digital) can support CCIs for Refugee Youth (RY) (young people aged 16-32 years) that will enable better integration and access to VET in the Network-hosting communities of 6 of the world's top 10 RHCs - Turkey, Uganda, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Lebanon and Ethiopia. This project will advance our theoretical understanding, build strong, equitable and sustainable partnerships, and support the engagement of the Creative Network's stakeholders. Building on knowledge gained through the experiences of previously funded GCRF projects such as the 'Building futures' and RELIEF projects, this project aims to identify, increase and promote equitable and sustainable opportunities for our Creative Network's collaborators and partners, local communities and wider stakeholders to co-design ideas to support the full Network plus proposal. Adopting qualitative, co-production and action-research methodologies, we will work in partnership with researchers at HEIs and IROs across the case RHCs, and collaborating partners such as UNHCR, UNESCO, UNICEF, Action on Armed Violence, Finn Church Aid, Habitat, Multeciler etc". We will begin the project by undertaking stakeholder mapping activities that includes identifying and negotiating access to different refugee youth and groups, and other stakeholders (e.g. community leaders, Government representative, project partners, VET representatives, academics including ECRs etc.); carrying out a critical review of local and international policies and programmes of RY integration and VET in each RHC, in order to highlight innovative practice, as well as areas that require further investigation. we will establish preliminary dialogues through small meetings and Stakeholder Engagement Event (SEE) to understand local contexts and sensitivities around historic, cultural, religious, linguistic, gender and equality, and the intersections between them. We also aim to understand initial ideas for innovative Proof of Concepts (PoC) in CCIs in each country to further the development of theories of change/pathways to impact in relevant RHC context. Additionally, we will run research training sessions with a sample of Early Career Researchers and Co-Investigators based in RHC partner countries; pilot and test the Creative Network's proposed methods/approaches of engagement with stakeholders, for example, Virtual Webinars and social media tools such as Facebook Live, YouTube etc., as well as delivering a skills MOOC to a sample of 10-15 RY in each case country. In securing a long-term legacy, we will create a Global Refugee Research Network (GRRN) over different social media channels.