Research lunches

These events are primarily intended for REPI members, but anyone wishing to attend can write to corsci.repi@ulb.be for more information.

February 18, 2026 - 12:00-1:30 pm

"Organising the Ecological Transformation of the Humanitarian Sector. An Experts’ Governance in the Southern Mediterranean"
Description: This doctoral project examines how networks of experts in Europe are organising the “ecological transformation” of the humanitarian sector, particularly in the southern Mediterranean region. Grounded in critical think tank studies and postcolonial studies, along with methods from organisational ethnography, it analyses the institutionalisation and operationalisation of environmental commitments across multiple levels of humanitarian governance.
Speaker: Sonia CHABANE
Bio: Sonia Chabane (she/her) is a doctoral candidate at REPI and a teaching assistant in ULB's Department of Political Science. Between 2023 and 2025, she was a Global Fellow at Brown University’s Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Studies. She has now joined the coordination group of JUSTES (JUSTice Ecologique et Sociale), an interdisciplinary research group at the FNRS working on social and ecological justice.
In previous years, Sonia gained experience working on issues related to the professional worlds of humanitarian aid, regional cooperation in civil protection and crisis management, and forced international mobility, mainly in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, and Morocco.
Room Kant- IEE

March 11, 2026 - 12:00-1:30 pm

Title: TBD
Speaker: Diana VOLPE
Bio: Diana Volpe is a postdoctoral Wiener-Anspach Fellow at REPI, Université libre de Bruxelles. Their research project focuses on the offshore administrative detention and border control. They gained their DPhil from the University of Oxford, where their research focused on the process of legitimation of outsourcing of migration control operations in the Mediterranean within the Italian political sphere, and the use of migration control discourse for national identity building. Their research has been supported by Graduate Women International, the Luigi Einaudi Foundation, and the Wiener-Anspach Foundation.
They have (co-)taught courses on International Relations, Migration and Development and the Politics of Forced Migration at the University of Oxford.

Room: Spaak - IEE

April 8, 2026 -  12:30 - 1:30 pm

Titre : TBD
Speaker : TBC

Room: Spaak-IEE

May 20, 2026 -  12:30-13:30 pm

Titre : TBD
Speaker: Natalia TEJERO RIVAS
Bio: Natalia holds a master's degree in international and security policy from the European School of Political and Social Sciences (ESPOL) at the Catholic University of Lille. She is currently a doctoral student in political and social sciences at the ULB. Her areas of research include the categorization of criminal violence in Mexico and Colombia, the production and circulation of security knowledge, and regional security practices.

Room: Kant- IEE