Areas of Expertise

• Migration, asylum, and refugee issues
• Displacement and migration in the context of climate change
• Integration into labor markets and education systems
• Migration statistics
• Return and reintegration

Short Bio

Sophie Meiners has been an associate fellow in DGAP's Migration Program since January 2024. She originally joined that program in May 2022 as a research fellow with a focus on return and reintegration. In particular, she conducts research on the prospects and limits of returnee networks in countries of origin.

Previously, Meiners worked for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) where she was a Carlo Schmid Fellow in the Office of the Special Advisor for Climate Action. She also supported a study by Germany’s Expert Council on Integration and Migration (SVR) on the educational opportunities for young newcomers and worked in the Competence Centre for Immigration at the Network “Integration through Qualification (IQ)” on the topics of immigration and labor market integration of migrants. During a stay at the Zambia office of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, she also gained experience in the areas of development and internal migration.

Meiners completed her master’s degree in political science with a focus on refugee and migration policy at the University of Potsdam and Tel Aviv University.

Meiners was a Fellow of the Think Tank School 2023.

Policy Project: Thinking Beyond Financial Pledges: How to Engage the Ukrainian Diaspora in European Efforts to Rebuild Ukraine

Languages

German, English, Spanish

[Last updated: January 2024]