The 2024 Summer Course on Refugee Issues will be held from June 2 - 6, 2025 at York University.
"Climate Migration Futures: Shaping The Research Agenda for 2050"
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.
All participants who complete the full course receive a York University Centre for Refugee Studies Summer Course Certificate.
If you would like to be kept updated about CRS, please let us know that you’d like to be added to our listserv by emailing Michele Millard at mmillard@yorku.ca.
Overview
Climate Migration Futures: Shaping The Research Agenda for 2050
Course Theme:
The nexus of climate change and human mobility is rapidly transforming, demanding new, innovative research that anticipates the challenges and impacts of the coming decades. Climate Migration Futures: Shaping the Research Agenda for 2050 challenges conventional approaches and pushes the boundaries of how research can support our response to climate-induced migration.
This cutting-edge course focuses on bold, forward-thinking research priorities and methods that can help to address key questions such as:
- How can we develop adaptive frameworks that respond not only to known risks but to the unforeseen disruptions of the next three decades?
- How can we theorize and design relocation strategies that are both ethical and scalable in an era of unprecedented environmental change?
- How does localisation inform the discourse and praxis on climate change and population mobility?
- What innovative methods, from AI to predictive modelling, can help us forecast and mitigate the impact of climate migration in the face of uncertainty?
Participants will engage with case studies and research findings from regions on the climate frontlines, exploring how research scenarios address these questions and reveal both successful interventions as well as the unintentional, but often time intentional, creation of new vulnerabilities.
Through an immersive combination of expert-led sessions, collaborative design-thinking workshops, and innovative scenario planning, the course will help to:
- redefine the research agenda on climate migration;
- explore what research is needed to tackle the impacts of climate migration;
- advance the appropriate research tools and methods that can inform policy development.
This course is designed for scholars, policymakers and practitioners who are ready to push the boundaries on current research thinking and praxis, bridging interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary tools to address the current and unforeseen factors that will define climate migration by 2050. Participants will leave prepared to advance a transformative research agenda rooted in resilience, climate justice, and innovation in the face of global climate change impacts.
2025 tuition fees
A modest tuition subsidy is available to eligible participants, subject to available funding. We will send the link to the application form to participants who have been accepted into the course.
In-person*:
Note that the Early Bird registrants will be given a coupon code upon acceptance to get the reduced rate.
Early bird rate: $1,075 CAD + 13%HST (deadline April 15, 2025)
Early bird for participants based in the Global South: $750 CAD + 13% HST (deadline April 15, 2025)
Regular rate: $1,500 CAD + 13%HST (deadline May 25, 2025)
*This includes coffee breaks and a light lunch. Accommodation, travel and other costs are not included and must be covered by the participant.
Attending virtually:
Early bird rate: $925 CAD + 13%HST (deadline April 15, 2025)
Early bird for participants based in the Global South: $600 CAD + 13% HST (deadline April 15, 2025)
Regular rate: $1,350 CAD + 13%HST (deadline May 25, 2025)
Payment
All payments are by credit card only (please note that it is not possible to pay by debit card). Please do not pay the registration fee until your acceptance in the program has been confirmed. Please click on the link below to complete your payment.
Summer Course Registration Payment link
Visa support
For many attendees it can take many weeks for the immigration authorities to assess a visa application, so the earlier you apply once you've been accepted the better.
For those who have already applied for their visas and are still waiting for the results, you are not required to pay the registration until you have been successful in getting a visa. You don't have to worry about the early bird registration deadline - we will make it available to you at any time once you have your visa.
At York University
Attendees who plan to stay at York University may request accommodation from conference services through their accommodation request form. Rates for a single room are $70.00 + tax per night and rates for a double room are $114.00 + tax per night.
Off-campus
For attendees who prefer to reside downtown, closer to the conference location, the University of Toronto offers (expensive) residence rooms . The Toronto Metropolitan University , which is right downtown, near the Eaton Centre, also offers rooms, beginning at $75 a night. These rates are subject to change. Attendees may also find reasonably priced rooms through Airbnb, Expedia.ca or Kayak.ca.
Summer Course Academic Director
Centre for Refugee Studies
York University
Kaneff Tower, Room 850
4700 Keele Street, Toronto
Ontario, Canada M3J 1P3
E-mail: summer@yorku.ca