The course introduces the concept of migration and development from the theoretical, historical and recent perspectives in the age of dynamic globalization processes. Specifically, the course will discusse topics such as migration theories, history of European migration, recent immigration flows to Europe, impacts of economic globalization in past and present, refugees in the world; volume and regional disparities of remittances and their consequences on development; international migration in relation to poverty; climate change impacts on migration and population dynamics; qualified migration and brain drain impacts; statistical data on global international migration. Lecturing will be based on the “research-based teaching” method and the lecturer’s experience with a field research in Asia, Africa, and Europe. Students will prepare and present their team projects on selected topics within the seminars.

By the end of this course, the students will gain the following knowledge, skills and experience: knowledge and understanding of concepts employed within different economic and social disciplines; understanding of the relationship between “international migration” and “economic development”; awareness of the existing complex relationships between migration, development and environment in both developing and developed countries and regions; skills, competences and work techniques such as team work, sources analysis, data synthesis, self-opinion presentation and advocacy during the plenary discussion; ability to analyze and visualize outcomes of the analyses.

Robert Stojanov is DiSSGeA Visiting Professor at the Department of Historical and Geographical Sciences and the Ancient World at University of Padua, and assistant professor at Faculty of Business and Economics, Mendel University in Brno. He is environmental and population geographer focusing on drivers and techniques of smart migration; migration, remittances and development; environmental factors of population dynamics; social and economic impacts of climate change and adaptation strategies. Robert received his PhD in Environmental Geography at the University of Ostrava, and two master’s degrees in History, Geography, Social Studies at the University of Education in Hradec Králové, and in Environmental Studies at the Faculty of Social Sciences at Masaryk University in Brno. He was awarded by Jean Monnet Postdocotoral Fellowship at the European University Institute; by a Certificate for Climate Change & Its Impact at Brown University, and received awards for Excellence for Highly Commended Paper of 2015 and 2016 by Emerald Group Publishing. Before joining the University of Padua, he was Jean Monnet Fellow at the Migration Policy Centre (MPC) within European University Institute in Florence, and served as Head of the Adaptation Strategies Research Unit of the Center for Global Change Research at the Czech Academy of Sciences, and as a assistant professor at Charles University and Palacký University. He is member of the Editorial Board of the Population & Environment journal. Robert published the results of his research activities in 50+ journal papers, chapters and books. In the last few years, he has been attending lectures at a number of foreign universities and institutions, such as Brown University, University College London, the World Bank, KU Leuven, European University Institute etc. The results of his work can be found at http://www.stojanov.org