5. Partnerships: Supporting and Collaborating Institutions

The Government of Finland, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), New Delhi, and the Brookings Institution, Washington DC are the sponsors of the programme. With their un-stinted support and goodwill, the programme has become one of the most well known events in the field of forced migration studies, and an academic event in Kolkata.  

Preparation for the Fifth Winter Course on Forced Migration commenced on 14 December 2007, a day before the Fourth Winter Course formally ended.  By that time CRG members and its collaborators had realised that the Winter Course has grown into a full-fledged programme with components of research, networking, particularly partnership between Indian and Finnish institutions, and training under innovative and different formats.  This was later accepted and endorsed by the advisors during the advisory committee meeting in May 2007. 

The collaborative nature of the programme was underlined from the beginning by the participatory nature of the advisory meeting. The Advisory Committee Meeting of the Fifth CRG Winter Course on Forced Migration was held in New Delhi on 11 May 2007. The participants included the following:

Ranabir Samaddar (CRG)
Paula Banerjee (CRG & Calcutta University)
Subhash Ranjan Chakraborty (CRG & Presidency College)
Sanam Roohi (CRG)
Ksenia Glebova (CRG & Winter Course alumnus)
Asha Hans (ex-Utkal University & Sansristi, Bhubabeswar)
Monirul Hussain (Gauhati University)
Partha Ghosh (Jawaharlal Nehru University)
Carol Batchelor (UNHCR, New Delhi)
Nayana Bose (UNHCR, New Delhi)
Kalpana Kannabiren (National Law School & Asmita, Hyderabad)
Khesheli Chishi Sema (Naga Mothers’ Association)
Anna-Kaisa Heikkinen (Embassy of Finland, New Delhi
Sanjay Barbora (Panos South Asia)
Priyanca Mathur Velath (Jawaharlal Nehru University)
Shiva K. Dhungana (Nepal Institute of Peace)
Gayatri Sharma (Centre for Feminist Legal Research, Delhi)    Saba Hussain (Green Peace, Bangalore)
Malkit Singh (Panjab University & Winter Course alumnus)    

Several suggestions emerged as a result of the advisory meeting including greater engagement with methodological issues and customizing them for forced migration studies, more emphasis on auditing and strategizing media in the course, and special focus on environmental and climate change as factors of forced migration. Induction of participants particularly from outside South Asia – it was felt - would make the course more interesting and far-reaching. The meeting also recommended the publication of a 250-300 page reader on forced migration containing select reading materials circulated for the course.