2024 CRS Summer Course on Refugee Issues

Summer Course on Forced Migration: Exploring the intersections between forced migration and technology

The course will be offered in a hybrid format, with some participants attending in person and some attending remotely.

For over two decades, York University’s Centre for Refugee Studies has run an internationally acclaimed, non-credit professional development Summer Course that brings together practitioners, policy makers, and researchers to learn together about the most pressing forced migration and refugee issues.

This year’s Summer Course, which is being offered in collaboration with Osgoode Hall Law School’s Refugee Law Laboratory, will focus on research, policy, and practices at the intersections of forced migration and technology.

The number of people on the move increases each year. To adapt to this trend, institutions that manage borders and refugee adjudication processes are deploying new technologies. At this year’s Summer Course, we will turn our attention to the problems and opportunities presented by new technologies for refugee status determination systems, human rights advocates, border management officials, and people on the move.

This interdisciplinary, interactive, and experiential course will explore how technology has been and can be deployed—in both rights enhancing and rights limiting ways—around the world in response to forced migration.

We will bring policy makers, adjudicators, researchers, refugees, and NGO actors together to develop ideas about how technology, including artificial intelligence and machine learning, can be used to increase fairness, protect rights, and help address forced migration at scale. Featuring presentations, panels discussions, and break-out sessions, participants will be invited to think critically and thoughtfully about how cutting-edge technologies can, should, and should not be used in the forced migration space.

All participants who complete the full course receive a York University Centre for Refugee Studies Summer Course Certificate.

Please note that you must be accepted in the CRS Summer Course before being eligible to attend. Information about the Summer Course and how to apply can be found here: . Ineligible registrations will be refunded.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

York University, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto, Canada