Why do you want to join?
You will learn about the social and political implications from experts in various disciplines.
You will join a debate on the European migration pact and visit some European institutions during a field trip to Brussels.
You will take action yourself and work in a social organization supporting migrants in the city of Antwerp.
You will have the opportunity to share your reflections with peers and present the outcome to the organizers and social partners.
This programme is part of the Antwerp Summer & Winter University and the UCSIA Solidarity Academy.
How can you join?
This programme is designed for final-year master’s students and PhD researchers at universities in Europe and beyond, and young professionals.
The participation fee is € 350. This includes course material, coffee breaks, lunches, social activities, and farewell dinner. It does not include travel and accommodation.
University of Antwerp students are entitled to a €150 fee reduction to support their participation in a summer or winter school organised by Antwerp Summer and Winter University.
The application deadline is 24 November 2025. Applicants will be notified about the selection results by 2 December 2025.
Successful completion of the winter school can be awarded with 3 credits according to the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS). Credits will be awarded by the University of Antwerp on the base of 100 % (active) participation during the course and group work and submission of a portfolio at the end of the course.
Concept
The founding principle of the European project is solidarity as a means of cohesion between member states and a value in addressing European and global challenges.
Solidarity as compass
Founding father, Robert Schuman, described it as follows in his declaration of 9 May 1950, which laid the foundation for the European Union:
“Europe will not be made all at once, or according to a single plan:it will be formed through concrete measures which bring about a de facto solidarity.”
The 75th anniversary of this declaration was commemorated in 2025.
Europe was meant to be more than an economic union and Schuman offered solidarity as a compass to navigate future challenges and strengthen European cooperation in the long term. This is as pertinent today as it was in his time and, as European nations and citizens, we are called to contribute to this European ideal ‘in the making’.
Migration crisis
One of the persistent challenges is how to face the migration crisis, which is the focus of attention of this first edition of the winter school.
There is an urgent need for more solidarity amongst member states in receiving global migrants, who appeal for human dignity, a moral obligation as stated by the late Pope Francis:
“Above all I ask leaders and legislators and the entire international community to confront the reality of those who have been displaced by force, with effective projects and new approaches in order to protect their dignity, to improve the quality of their life and to face the challenges that are emerging from modern forms of persecution, oppression and slavery.”
Solidarity and human dignity
In order to understand what is at stake, the UCSIA Winter School will investigate the concepts of solidarity and human dignity from a philosophical and historical perspective.
This will provide a theoretical lens to interpret the ensuing presentations on:
The social construction of Europe through acquired rights and instruments (Social Funds and the European Pillar for Social Rights) for the protection of migrating EU-citizens and workforce within the Union and how this could be extended to non-EU citizens.
The political tensions in drafting migration policies at the EU-level and finding common ground or unity in diversity, while sharing the burden on the basis of subsidiarity and strengthening cooperation with third countries.
The legal foundations supporting and managing a just migration regime.
Concrete support
In addition to the theoretical framework, the winter school will present concrete ways to support and protect vulnerable migrant groups.
Structure of the programme
The topic of this year’s edition will be presented to the wider audience in a public lecture on Wednesday.
The students will follow theoretical courses in the morning. In the afternoon the students will join local organizations working with migrants and reflect on this experience in group, following the community service-learning approach.
An excursion to the European institutes in Brussels completes the programme of this interdisciplinary and interactive winter school developed for final-year master’s and PhD students from universities within and beyond Europe.
Course I – The intellectual history of European solidarity
on Monday 2 February 2026
9:00 am
Historical and contemporary tensions & debates - Herbert De Vriese & Henk de Smaele
Solidarity is not uncontroversial. Anyone who comes forward today with a plea for the need for solidarity can expect a series of classic objections. Disagreements about the importance of solidarity often turn out to be disagreements about the precise terms and conditions of solidarity. In this first introductory lesson, we explore three historical contexts to show the ideological tensions and theoretical debates that manifest themselves around the idea of solidarity.
Herbert De Vriese is a professor at the Centre for European Philosophy at the University of Antwerp. In 2011 he obtained his PhD at the University of Antwerp with a dissertation on the Young Hegelians, a group of German thinkers who gave Hegel’s philosophy a practical twist. His central research interest concerns the transformation of European philosophy in the transition from Hegel to Nietzsche, the so-called ‘revolutionary rupture’ in nineteenth-century philosophy. In a broader perspective, he examines the history of modern metaphysics (criticism) and the connection between the history of philosophy and cultural history. Together with Guido van Heeswijck, he has further elaborated Max Weber’s disenchantment thesis in relation to numerous current social problems. He is the coordinator of the lecture series and Spring school on Philosophical Sources of European Identity.
Henk de Smaele is a professor of history at the University of Antwerp. He started his career as a political historian, studying nineteenth-century Belgian elections and parties (with an emphasis on the Catholic party). His research focus has shifted towards the history of gender and sexuality, and – more recently – to the history of cultural encounters between European and Ottoman/Turkish citizens in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He is interested in challenging the still dominant paradigm of ‘modernization’ in much of today’s historiography.
His main affiliation is with the research unit Power in History: Centre for Political History. Furthermore, he is involved in several interdisciplinary projects on gender and sexuality, collaborating regularly with colleagues from other disciplines of the Antwerp Gender and Sexuality Studies Network (A*). He is also affiliated to the Antwerp Research Institute for the Arts (ARIA), of which he was the first chairman (2014-2017). He has been Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Sussex (2002-2003), Honorary Lecturer at the History Department of University College London (2015-2017) and Visiting Research Fellow of the Birkbeck Institute for Social Research, University of London (2017-2018). He is also co-chair of the Belgian Archive and Research Centre for Women’s History (Brussels) and founding member of the Forum for Belgian Research in History of Women, Gender and Sexuality.
10:30 am
Coffee break
10:45 am
Framing and contextualizing the concept - Herbert De Vriese & Henk de Smaele
Starting from insights in these three case studies, we try to develop a more general vision. The concept of solidarity is refined by distinguishing it from other forms of support and association. Finally, we assign it a specific context to enable meaningful theoretical argumentation.
Herbert De Vriese is a professor at the Centre for European Philosophy at the University of Antwerp. In 2011 he obtained his PhD at the University of Antwerp with a dissertation on the Young Hegelians, a group of German thinkers who gave Hegel’s philosophy a practical twist. His central research interest concerns the transformation of European philosophy in the transition from Hegel to Nietzsche, the so-called ‘revolutionary rupture’ in nineteenth-century philosophy. In a broader perspective, he examines the history of modern metaphysics (criticism) and the connection between the history of philosophy and cultural history. Together with Guido van Heeswijck, he has further elaborated Max Weber’s disenchantment thesis in relation to numerous current social problems. He is the coordinator of the lecture series and Spring school on Philosophical Sources of European Identity.
Henk de Smaele is a professor of history at the University of Antwerp. He started his career as a political historian, studying nineteenth-century Belgian elections and parties (with an emphasis on the Catholic party). His research focus has shifted towards the history of gender and sexuality, and – more recently – to the history of cultural encounters between European and Ottoman/Turkish citizens in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He is interested in challenging the still dominant paradigm of ‘modernization’ in much of today’s historiography.
His main affiliation is with the research unit Power in History: Centre for Political History. Furthermore, he is involved in several interdisciplinary projects on gender and sexuality, collaborating regularly with colleagues from other disciplines of the Antwerp Gender and Sexuality Studies Network (A*). He is also affiliated to the Antwerp Research Institute for the Arts (ARIA), of which he was the first chairman (2014-2017). He has been Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Sussex (2002-2003), Honorary Lecturer at the History Department of University College London (2015-2017) and Visiting Research Fellow of the Birkbeck Institute for Social Research, University of London (2017-2018). He is also co-chair of the Belgian Archive and Research Centre for Women’s History (Brussels) and founding member of the Forum for Belgian Research in History of Women, Gender and Sexuality.
11:45 am
Coffee break
12:00 pm
Paradigms & typologies - Alessandro Volpe
This lecture aims to introduce European solidarity and its main facets and paradigms by also underlying some of their flaws and advantages in connection to examples of their concrete implementation into the European reality. The lecture attempts to provide a descriptive outlook of these main paradigms as well as a tentative development of the post-identitarian approach to European solidarity, starting from a reappraisal of the very concept of modern solidarity.
Alessandro Volpe is a researcher in Moral Philosophy at the Faculty of Philosophy, Vita-Salute San Raffaele University in Milan. He is a member of the European Centre for Social Ethics. His research focuses on contemporary critical theory, the idea of solidarity, and the relationship between Europe and philosophy.
Previously, he was a research fellow and received his Ph.D. in Philosophy at Vita-Salute San Raffaele University. He was also a research fellow at the Fondazione Fratelli Confalonieri (Milan) and a Visiting doctoral fellow (2019-2020) in the Cluster of Excellence “Normative Orders” at the J.W. Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main, under the supervision of Rainer Forst. He currently teaches “The Western Tradition: Moral and Political Values” at the University of Milan-UniSR and “Ethics for Engineers” at Carlo Cattaneo University in Castellanza (VA). He is a member of the Italian Society of Critical Theory; the Italian Society of Moral Philosophy; member of the editorial board of the scientific journal “The Future of Science and Ethics”.
Since 2022 he has been also a scientific consultant for Fondazione Umberto Veronesi. Since 2017 he has been coordinator of the permanent seminar “History, Utopia, Emancipation” at UniSR and since 2021 co-curator of the series of seminars “Europa anni ‘20”, in collaboration with Casa della Cultura in Milan, a project winner in 2022 of the “University4EU” Prize.
1:00 pm
Lunch break
2:00 pm
Student assignment introduction and meeting with the social organizations
5:00 pm
End of day 1
Course II – The institutionalization of European solidarity
on Tuesday 3 February 2026
9:00 am
EU Social Acquis - Sarah Marchal
This lecture discusses the socialization of the European social project. It presents how the EU originated as an economic and political project, with social rights as derivative to the market. It then traces the – sometimes creeping, sometimes abrupt – changes to EU social policy making, and considers the current state of social policy making at the EU-level.
Sarah Marchal is an assistant professor at the Centre for Social Policy (CSB) at the University of Antwerp, where she teaches courses on European Societies and Inequality and policy. She looks into the design, accessibility, and effectiveness of targeted social policy provisions, from a cross-national comparative perspective. She uses micro- and hypothetical household simulations to understand the impact of social policy on vulnerable target groups. Importantly, in her research, she takes account of the impact administrative implementation decisions have on the experiences of target groups with limited and spotty labour market attachment. She has collaborated on various international research projects on social policy, poverty reduction, and inequality.
10:30 am
Coffee break
10:45 am
Social Rights for Migrating EU & Non-EU Citizens - Herwig Verschueren
This presentation will focus on the social rights that EU guarantees to migrants. It will first give an overview of how EU law ensures the social rights of migrant Union citizens and their family members and this in the context of European citizenship and the free movement of persons within the Union. Next, this presentation will look at the social rights to which certain categories of third-country nationals are entitled under EU law. Finally, the presentation will evaluate the extent to which this legal framework contributes to solidarity within the EU.
Herwig Verschueren was professor of International and European Labour and Social Security law at the University of Antwerp. Since 1 October 2023 he is emeritus professor at this University. He previously worked as a civil servant at the European Commission in the field of free movement of workers and the co-ordination of social security schemes. His current teaching and research concentrates on European social law and more specifically on the legal position of migrating EU citizens with regard to labour and social security rights. He is the author and co-author of books, articles and reports on these issues. He frequently gives lectures at international seminars and conferences. He is an expert member of the European academic network “MoveS” (Free movement of workers and EU social security coordination).
11:45 am
Coffee break
12:00 pm
Exporting the Social Acquis beyond the EU - Jan Orbie
The EU is widely recognized to be a formidable trade power. It has also negotiated a growing amount of free trade agreements with third countries. For many decades, trade unions, human rights activists and social-democratic politicians have advocated the inclusion of social norms in these agreements. My intervention will focus on social norms in the ‘Trade and Sustainable Development’ Chapters of EU trade agreements: what are they and how can they be evaluated? First, I will give a brief overview of the particular way in which the EU’s social acquis has been addressed in trade agreements and how this has (not) been implemented. Second, I will provide some frameworks on how to evaluate the tensions that emerge, considering how social objectives have been overshadowed by neoliberal and geopolitical objectives on the one hand, and the European (neo)colonial project on the other hand. The latter will be further contextualized by pointing at the racist and colonial entanglements of European ‘social’ policies since the beginnings of the European integration project. Overall, this will provide a different perspective on EU claims to export its ‘social acquis’.
Jan Orbie is a Professor at the Department of Political Science at Ghent University in Belgium, where he teaches and researches the external relations of the European Union. He is associated with the Ghent Institute for International and European Studies (GIES), the Human Rights Research Network (HRRN), the Ghent Centre for Global Studies (GCGS) and the Learning Network on Decolonization at Ghent University.
His research interests cover the external relations of the European Union, in particular external trade and development policies, Europe’s global social role, EU democracy promotion, the EU in international institutions, and conceptual debates around Europe’s global role.
1:00 pm
Lunch break
2:00 pm
Solidarity in Practice I – learning experience through immersion in social organizations
5:00 pm
End of day 2
Course III – The Legitimatization of European Solidarity
on Wednesday 4 February 2026
9:00 am
European Migration Law - Mieke Verrelst
This presentation will focus on the framework for immigration and asylum policies of the EU. Under Article 80 TFEU these policies and their implementation shall be governed by the principle of solidarity and fair sharing of responsibility, including its financial implications, between the Member States. Whenever necessary, EU legislation shall contain appropriate measures to give effect to this principle. The presentation will look into the application of this principle within the existing and coming legislative framework.
Mieke Verrelst is a PhD researcher and teaching assistant in constitutional and administrative law, working under the supervision of prof. Dirk Vanheule. Her research focuses on immigration and asylum law.
Before joining the Government and Law Research Group at the University of Antwerp in 2023, she worked for the Belgian State Secretary for Asylum and Migration as an advisor and deputy head of cabinet. Prior to that, she worked as a protection officer at the Regional Representation of UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, in Brussels. She also worked as a researcher for UNHCR in the 2012 CREDO project on credibility assessment in the asylum procedure, and for ECRE in the 2013 APAIPA project on actors of protection and the application of internal protection alternative. From 2008 to 2012, she was member of the Antwerp Bar Association, with a main focus on immigration and asylum law.
Since 2013, she has provided trainings to government officials, lawyers, and NGO’s, as well as guest lectures at Ghent University, on various topics such as statelessness, UNHCR guidelines, fundamental rights at external borders, and immigration detention.
She holds a master of law (University of Antwerp and Erasmus exchange at Université de Nice-Sophia Antipolis) and a master of international relations and diplomacy (University of Antwerp and Erasmus exchange at Marmara University in Istanbul).
10:30 am
Coffee break
10:45 am
Migration & Burden Sharing - Eleonora Milazzo
Solidarity and responsibility sharing are core principles of migration and asylum management. Still, they prove hard to achieve in practice and their policy implications are recurrently subject to intense public debate. What does it mean to have a duty of solidarity in the EU? How are solidarity and responsibility sharing related to each other? This interactive session will shed light on the meaning and value of solidarity and responsibility sharing in the context of the European asylum system and its latest set of reforms, namely the New Pact on Migration and Asylum.
Eleonora Milazzo is a research fellow at the Migration Policy Centre (MPC) at the European University Institute, where she works on research-to-policy engagement. She is also Senior Adviser at the European Policy Centre and Associate Fellow at the Egmont Institute in Brussels. Eleonora is the author of the book Refugee Protection and Solidarity. The Duties of EU Member States (Oxford University Press, 2023). Thematically, her work focuses on EU migration and asylum policies, social inclusion, development cooperation, and the policy nexus between migration, climate change, and human security. Eleonora has a background in think-tanking, policy analysis, and academic research. Before joining the MPC, Eleonora worked as Joint Research Fellow at the European Policy Centre and the Egmont Institute in Brussels. Previously, she gained professional experience at the Refugee Studies Centre in Oxford and Carnegie Europe in Brussels. Before turning to migration and asylum in the EU, she worked on climate change governance and EU-Russia relations at the Ecologic Institute in Berlin and the Russian International Affairs Council in Moscow. In addition to her think-tanking experience, Eleonora conducts policy analysis as a free-lance consultant for UN agencies, international organisations, NGOs, national authorities, and international research consortia on issues related to migration policies, development, and social inclusion.
Regarding her academic background, Eleonora holds a PhD in Political Science from the European University Institute (2021) and was a Postdoctoral Researcher at King’s College London. She is a political theorist by training and carried out research on the ethics of migration and refugee protection in the EU.
11:45 am
Coffee break
12:00 pm
Migration & Third Countries - Philipp Stutz
In recent years, cooperation with non-EU countries has become crucial for the EU’s migration policy. This lecture will discuss how the EU engages with non-EU countries in its neighbourhood and beyond on migration issues and how this policy has evolved over the last 25 years. The EU’s externalization approach can help us understand the complexities and challenges behind the cooperation, but differs between regions. We will see that as migration cooperation with the EU has become both more politicized and contentious, some African countries push back more on the EU’s agenda than, for instance, countries in the Western Balkans and Eastern Europe.
The EU has several tools at its disposal that the cooperation is based on; among them are EU Readmission Agreements and border cooperation; offering incentives for cooperation through funding such as the EU Trust Fund for Africa; and providing opportunities for legal migration with the Mobility Partnership instrument and visa facilitation. A special attention will be put on the cooperation on readmission and return, a key priority for the Union. Despite increased resources devoted to establishing new readmission agreements and arrangements, return rates have been stagnating or declining.
Philipp Stutz is a postdoctoral researcher at the Brussels School of Governance at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) from which he also received his PhD. Philipp’s research interests concentrate on EU migration policy, externalisation and cooperation with third countries, with a special interest in the EU’s return rate. Currently, Philipp collaborates on an FWO-funded project on bilateral readmission and return cooperation.
1:00 pm
Lunch break
2:00 pm
5:00 pm
Solidarity in practice II – reflecting on learning experience in social organizations
7:00 pm
8:30 pm
Public lecture - More information will be posted soon!
Course IV - European Migration Policy
on Thursday 5 February 2026
9:00 am
Departure to Brussels
10:30 am
Coffee break
10:45 am
Panel debate on the EU Migration Pact
with representatives of NGO’s
- Alberto Ares of JRS – Jesuit Refugee Services Europe
- Nilsu Çagla Kaya of ECRE – European Council on Refugees and Exiles
- third panelist tbc
11:45 am
Coffee break
12:00 pm
Panel debate on the EU Migration Pact
2:00 pm
Visit to the European Parliament and the House of European History - Peter Bursens
A visit to policy makers & institutions with Peter Bursens (University of Antwerp)
Peter Bursens is a professor of political science at the Department of Political Science and a member of the research group Politics and Public Governance. He has served as program director and vice-dean for education from 2012 until 2018. He teaches on the topics of European integration and multilevel political systems. He also teaches courses at the Antwerp Management School and the Institute for Sustainable Development and Environment.
His research agenda focuses on European decision-making, Europeanization, federalism and democratic legitimacy of multi-level political systems. He is a senior member of the Politics and Public Governance Research Group. His research is embedded in the GOVTRUST Centre of Excellence, which focuses on trust and distrust in multilevel settings. He holds a Jean Monnet Chair on ’skills teaching in European Union Studies’, through which he develops simulation games and assessment tools for skill teaching in political science and European studies curricula.
5:00 pm
End of day 4
Course V – Creative leadership & social engagement in action
on Friday 6 February 2026
9:00 am
Migration Challenges Facts & Figures - Dries Lens
In recent decades, Western European societies have become increasingly diverse due to international migration. While immigration offers significant economic and cultural benefits, it also presents substantial integration challenges. A key area of migration research focuses on the integration of immigrants and their descendants within host countries. This lecture will address “Ethnic Inequalities in European Labour Markets”, exploring the importance of these disparities, the mechanisms through which they manifest themselves, the underlying factors contributing to them, and strategies for their reduction.
Dries Lens is a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Antwerp, affiliated with the Centre for Social Policy. His research examines the economic integration of migrants and their descendants, focusing on educational outcomes, labour market participation, labour market transitions, and the effectiveness of integration policies. He also studies labour migration and intra-European mobility, particularly the posting of workers, analysing their characteristics, dynamics, and broader societal impacts.
10:30 am
Coffee break
10:45 am
Arrival Infrastructures & Migrant Newcomers - Mieke Schrooten
This lecture introduces the concept of arrival infrastructures as an interesting lens to analyse the elements and actors that shape migrants’ pathways after arrival. Building on case studies, the lecture examines how migrants, street-level bureaucrats, local residents and civil society actors build these arrival infrastructures – with the resources at their disposal – and what role they play in the lives of newcomers. Additionally, it addresses the impact of policy frameworks and local governance on the effectiveness of these infrastructures.
Mieke Schrooten is an assistant professor of Social Work at the University of Antwerp (Belgium) and senior researcher at Odisee University of Applied Sciences (Brussels, Belgium). Her main topics of interest are mobility, transnational family dynamics, transnational social work and informal social protection.
11:45 am
Coffee break
12:00 pm
Case good practice: Shelters as ‘Spaces of Hope’ - Pascal Debruyne
Crafting ‘lived citizenship’ for illegalized transnational families in arrival infrastructures
The lecture examines how shelters for illegalized transnational families in Belgium function as transformative spaces of hope, challenging traditional conceptions of citizenship, belonging, and social work practice.
Drawing on empirical interviews with undocumented migrants and social workers across Ghent, Brussels, and Antwerp, we analyze how shelter spaces—conceived as “arrival infrastructures”—mediate everyday negotiations of agency, recognition, and support in a context marked by legal liminality and welfare state bordering.
Employing German socio-spatial social work theory and the concept of lived citizenship, our research reveals how social workers and residents co-create dynamic environments of solidarity, advocacy, and collective learning, transcending victimhood narratives and passivity.
Shelters emerge not merely as sites of temporary refuge but as socially produced laboratories where undocumented families enact new forms of membership and mobilize for rights through everyday acts—caregiving, volunteering, and political participation.
The lecture demonstrates that migration and welfare regimes actively generate precariousness and survival economies, yet also provide fertile ground for the emergence of alternative citizenship practices anchored in relational care, mutual aid, and empowerment. Ultimately, we argue that these spaces foster innovative social work strategies, recalibrating agency and inclusion, and call for future policy and research to recognize and build upon the sociospatial processes underpinning lived citizenship for marginalized families.
Pascal Debruyne is a PhD in Political and Social Sciences. He works as a lecturer and researcher on asylum and migration at Odisee University for Applied Sciences, at the centre for family studies and the research center for social work. His work focuses on migration policies at large, social work and migration, family reunification and undocumented families.
1:00 pm
Lunch break
2:00 pm
Finalize assignment
4:00 pm
Performing Europe ‘OUR EUROPE?’ Student Presentations with feedback from social partners
5:30 pm
Farewell buffet with social partners
7:00 pm
