SUPERVISORY PANEL REPORT Department of Sociology Note for the Student At each meeting, the Supervisory Panel should receive a written report from you about your progress, training and a future work schedule. Please complete sections 1 – 5 of this report and return it to the supervisor and chair, no later than one week prior to the Panel meeting. Note for the Supervisor The supervisor has to provide oral or written comments on the student’s progress during the Supervisory Panel meeting. Please complete section 7 of this report and contribute to the final report from the Panel (section 8) Completed forms should also be shared with and signed by the student. Signed completed forms should be returned to the Graduate Administrator, by email: socpgadm@essex.ac.uk 1: Student details Name Nicolae Radulescu Registration Number 2003091 Supervisor Neli Demireva Co-Supervisor if applicable Tara Mahfoud Chair Carlos Gigoux Gramegna Registration: FT/PT FT Degree title Sociology Working title of thesis Refugee Entrepreneurship and Labour Market Integration Date standard. 09/10/2020 20/10/2023 period ends Date first registered Intermission: Please list dates of all intermission periods Date of this report 15/09/2021 Please provide dates of the meetings since the last panel. (includes Zoom/Skype/video meetings) Do you maintain regular email contact? Yes No 2. Extenuating circumstances Have you experienced any unusual or unforeseen circumstances which have affected your progress? Note that these should be recorded as soon as possible after they occur, and should be accompanied by documentary evidence, where possible. The pandemic has forced me to revise the methodology. Originally, I wanted to do ethnographic fieldwork and field visits, but this is now not possible. The pandemic has also delayed the collection of data for the 2 nd and 3rd papers. It has changed the way interviews are going to be carried out. Reaching the participants became harder as their businesses/entrepreneurial activities have been disrupted. 1 Updated November 2020 (SC) 3. Progress made since your last Supervisory Panel meeting Thesis Outline (a summary of chapter/paper titles, indicating the current state of progress on each section the word count of each section that you have written so far; and the date when you expect to have each section completed. I am planning to write my thesis as 3 publishable articles. Base on the milestones, so far I have achieved: A: Assess training needs and knowledge required to undertake research project and complete the thesis: - Attended the 1st year PhD colloquium: October 2020 to May 2021 - Essex Summer School Qualitative Interviewing – July 2021 - Introduction to Systematic Review – July 2021 B: Choose research topic and demonstrate significance/impact of research: First paper: a systematic review on the literature on refugee entrepreneurship. This paper’s goal is to differentiate between refugee entrepreneurs and economic migrant entrepreneurs. Seven themes emerged from the examined research. Firstly, these themes required a differentiation framework. Several previous studies such as Tomory (2008) and Wuaters and Lambrecht (2008) used the framework offered by Waldinger et al (1990) that focuses on (1) pre-migration characteristics, (2) the circumstances of migration and their evolution, and (3) post migration characteristics (Waldinger et al 1990). Hence, using this framework and combining the six main differences between economic migrant and refugee entrepreneurs found by Wauters and Lambrecht (2008): (1) Refugees have less extensive social networks, (2) they have limited access to the resources from their countries of origin, if any at all, (3) the flight and trauma cause psychological instability, (4) their flight which is a specific migration process to refugees comes with little or no preparation (5), the sudden flight forces them to leave valuable assets and resources in their home countries and (6) many refugees are not suited for paid formal labor in the host countries and the 7 characteristics identified by Tomory (2008): (1) pre-migration characteristics, (2) selective migration, (3) blocked mobility, (4) aspiration level, (5) circumstances of migration, (6) postmigration characteristics and (7) resource mobilisation, and analysing the rest of the papers mentioned in Table 1, this paper found 7 main factors that differentiate between refugee and economic migrant entrepreneurs: 1. Pre-migration characteristics 2. Market Opportunities and Blocked Mobility/Contextual Conditions 3. Human capital 4. Social capital 5. Financial capital 6. Discrimination 7. Location/Freedom of Movement Paper 2: Refugee centred business initiatives have not been examined in detail. Research is relatively missing on the effects of business support and efforts in contributing to refugees’ integrations into the labour market. Hence, my research will throw light on the role of ethnic entrepreneurship for the advancement of refugees by answering the research question what is the role of refugee led SMEs in their integration attempts? I will use a standard set of semi-structured interview questions driven by extensive literature review to collect data. They aim to understand the experiences of refugee employees and entrepreneurs at the business level, analyse the role of their business in facilitating their integration process. I will use purposive sampling, Respondent Driven Sampling (relies on the network structure of a target population) and Centres of Aggregation Technique (entails selecting several locations where immigrants are likely to be found) to identify participants. They need to meet 4 condition: being UK residents, legally documented refugees with right to work, older than 18 and operate/own a business. To do: develop the push/pull factors, describe the process of setting up a business in the UK, develop a section on entrepreneurs as community leaders. Paper 3: This paper will focus on refugees’ interaction with NGOs facilitating their integration into the labour market When scholars analyse the general role of civil society activities in refugee management and immigration, they focus on NGOs that provide basic services such as humanitarian aid, safety or welfare services including include safety of refugee communities in the receiving countries, delivering food and health services to refugees and migrants or implementing sustainable development programmes and sending voluntary donations to the countries of origin. There is a gap in the literature looking at the NGOs’ impact on economic integration of the refugees and effectiveness in reaching out to the people in need. Hence, my 3rd paper will 2 Updated November 2020 (SC) answer the research question can NGOs focusing on SMEs facilitate the economic integration of refugees in the receiving societies? For this 3rd paper, the NGOs need to focus on supporting the refugees integration into the labour market and work with SMEs. I will conduct an extensive online search to identify refugee entrepreneurs and specific NGOs. I will use social media to reach out to potential informants. Two refugee support NGOs will be approached acting as gatekeepers. 10 interviews with management of the selected companies and 5 with social workers working with the private sector and 5 informal interviews with refugee employees will be recorded upon informants’ consent who will be guaranteed complete confidentiality. However, after considerable research, there is only one such organisation in the UK. Hence, the paper will create a profile of TERN (the organisation mentioned) and will try to identify who other NGOs work indirectly with employment (factors that affect employment such as health, education, language and so on). Through my analysis I will try to identify the challenges NGOs supporting refugees face, I will compare different types of NGOs and how they support refugees and understand why there are not many organisations like TERN which helps with entrepreneurship? To do: describe how NGOs operate in the UK, check about how NGOs can help ethnic entrepreneurship indirectly (health, seed capital, language, education, location and embeddedness and knowledge about local market). C: Demonstrate understanding of chosen topic within the context of the field. Carried out literature review for all the three papers – see attachments. D: Demonstrate the ability to produce work of the quality and quantity in order to complete within the three year period. - Draft first paper (approximately 15,000 words) finalised - Literature review for the last 2 papers finalised (approximately 5,000 words each) - Total written so far: 25,000 words - Obtained ethical approval for the 2nd paper on refugee entrepreneurs in February 2021. - Identified and contacted possible participants for both 2nd and 3rd papers. I am in contact with 6 refugee entrepreneurs who’ve agreed to participate in the research. I also contacted an organisation called TERN which is the only organisation in the UK supporting refugees to set up businesses. They agreed to allow some members of staff to be interviewed, but we have not decided on an exact date yet as they are very busy at the moment. I also need to decide on a later date after finishing the training on interviews. Expected overall completion date: June 2023 4. Achievements and activities since your last Supervisory Panel meeting Please give details of any research, teaching or other paid work you have undertaken and any other achievements (publications, seminar or conference presentations, etc.): Year 1: January – August: Study Support Manager January – August: Teaching in the international college June – August: GTA Blended Learning in PPS Year 2: September – August: Teaching in the international college October – June: GTA: Researching social Life January – June: GTA: Human Rights and Global Justice June – August: GTA Blended Learning 5. Training Please give details of any training you have undertaken since your last SP meeting (please include any taught course modules you have taken or audited): - Essex Summer School - Qualitative Interviewing - National Centre for Research Methods - Systematic Reviews 3 Updated November 2020 (SC) Is there any training you are planning to do, or think you need to do, over the next year? NA Is there any training you and your supervisor identified as a training need, but which is not offered by the University (please provide details and refer to the PGRE Team)? 6. Career planning Please give details of any discussions you have had with your supervisor, Employability and Careers Office or other University colleagues/services about your future career planning: I have not had any such conversations. 7. Report from the Supervisor(s) Please comment on the student’s progress in relation to targets set at the last supervisory panel meeting: Please comment on any other points of discussion (such as ethical approval, career planning, achievements and activities undertaken by the student, etc.): 8. Report from the Supervisory Panel Meeting Please provide a short report, commenting on any concerns with the student’s progress. Please also include if appropriate to the circumstances of the student (1) details of any training which the meeting agreed should be undertaken over the next year, (2) the student’s progress against the departmental milestones for their stage of study, and (3) recommendations to the Research Students’ Progress Board on confirmation of PhD status (following a student’s first full year of study) and on entering completion (students completing their Standard period), where relevant. On a scale of 1 to 5 (see below), please give a summary of the student’s overall progress 1 No concerns at this point – the student is exceeding expectations. 2 No concerns at this point – the student is working to schedule. 3 The student is slightly behind schedule, but no particular action needs to be taken at this point. 4 The student is facing substantial difficulties with progress, outputs etc, but these may be resolved with hard work and close supervision. 5 Major concerns over progress and/or quality of outputs. Recommendation of the SP to the RSPB. Please indicate clearly which of the scale points the Panel has assigned and your reason for the judgement. Are there any extenuating circumstances, including Covid-19, which are impeding progress? Indicate how these are affecting progress and the proposed solutions? Does the SP have any other comments to note? 4 Updated November 2020 (SC) Membership of SP (including who was present at this meeting and who was the Chair) Chair’s signature: Date: Student and Supervisor: Please sign to confirm that you have read the above report and return the form to the Graduate Administrator within two weeks of your board meeting, for retention on file. Sole/first Supervisor: Neli Demireva Date: Second Supervisor: Tara Mahfoud Date: Student: Nicolae Radulescu Date: 15/09/2021 5 Updated November 2020 (SC)
