Navigating the Labyrinth: The impact and experiences of the Syrian refugee resettlement programme in comparative policy contexts

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The Syrian civil war has been described as resulting in 'the biggest humanitarian...crisis of our time' (UNHCR, 2017a: 4). By the end of 2013, UNHCR had registered over 6 million displaced people due to the conflict (UNHCR, 2013), resulting in an unprecedented average of 9,500 people being forced to leave their homes in Syria each day (Albuja et al., 2014). Established in 2014 and subsequently expanded in 2015, the Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme (VPRS) was introduced by the UK government to resettle 20,000 Syrian refugees between 2015-2020, with a primary focus on maintaining family units. Since the creation of the VPRS, 20,007 people have been resettled as part of the programme, with half of the recipients aged under 18 at the time of arrival (Wilkins, 2020) and 99.6% of refugees self-identifying as of Syrian nationality (Bolt, 2020). Distinct from the UK mainstream asylum system, recipients of the resettlement scheme were granted immediate recourse to public funds, temporary residency and permission to work.My doctoral research is the first to compare two different local Council approaches to the VPRS, from a perspective that evaluates the impact and experiences of policy. Prior research has tended to focus on the VPRS as perpetuating a two-tier system of asylum (see Karyotis et al, 2020), rarely unpacking both the processes by which policy is formulated, and its entailing consequences in the lives of recipients. Drawing on forty in-depth interviews with Syrian families and practitioners, my research provides a vital contribution to existing knowledge on resettlement, by exploring both the rationale behind policy design, and its subsequent impact on recipients as individuals, and within families. This project seeks to further enhance the valuable impact of my research by delivering a programme of activities to academic audiences, policymakers, refugee community organisations (RCOs) and the broader public. It will consolidate my publication record through the production of two key academic outputs: firstly; a book manuscript and, secondly; a high-impact, journal article. The book manuscript will be targeted towards Policy Press following preliminary discussions with the editor, with the journal article submitted to the Journal of Refugee Studies. The empirical data consolidated during this project will be disseminated to an international academic audience at the 'International Migration, Integration and Social Cohesion' conference (IMISCOE), Europe's largest network of researchers in the area of migration and integration. Over the duration of the fellowship, the project will also shed light on the micro and macro experiences of VPRS refugees through mixed-methods research, an area of scholarship that is surprisingly limited on the topic of resettlement. Existing interview data collected with refugee families and practitioners during my doctorate will be integrated with Census, survey and Home Office data. The pursuit of further limited research will not only consolidate the data collected as part of my ESRC-funded doctorate, but will advance my long-term career aspirations by enhancing my existing quantitative research methods training.Two impact activities will also be implemented: firstly; a public policy workshop and secondly; providing expert commentary through media engagement. The public policy workshop will facilitate constructive dialogues between policy practitioners, refugee organisations and researchers. Creative methods will be used to prompt discussions and a two-page policy 'toolkit' will be produced and distributed widely to local Councils. The evidence disseminated during my expert commentary on the BBC North-West Tonight News will include the open-access Census, survey and Home Office data analysed as a result of this fellowship, but will exclude any references to interview transcripts or fieldwork sites to protect participants' confidentiality.