Research projects

COLLABORATION WITH OTHER RESEARCH TEAMS

There has been a close cooperation with several European research teams:

A) The team of Italian researchers gathered around the Council of the magazine Ragion Pratica (some of which collaborate also in the magazine Teoria Politica),Professors P. Comanducci (University of Genova), F. Viola (Univ. of Palermo), V. Ferrari, A. Facchi and M. Losano (U. of Milan) and E. Vitale (Univ. of Turin), notably, who have taken part in the seminar “A democracy of minorities? Citizenship and exclusion in multicultural democracy”, which is a seminar of the Universidad Internacional Menendez y Pelayo held November 24-29,1997, at the UIMP-València.

B) The multinational team – coordinated from the University of Vincennes - Saint-Denis (Paris VIII)  by Prof. Varikas and Prof. G. Mairet - which is also supported by Professors of Middlesessex, Rome, Athens and Stockholm that, together with us make up the European module “Problèmes historiques et theoriques de la citoyennete en Europe” subsidized with a Sócrates contract (28614-IC-3-1998-1-FR-ERASMUS-EM-7). Recently, on the occasion of the celebration of the 60th Aniversary International Human Rights Seminar, professor of Public Law of Université in Paris X Nanterre Véronique Champeil-Desplats, responsible for the Master’s “Droits de l’ Homme” as well as Director of CREDOF (Centre de récherche et d’étude sur les droits fondamentaux)..

C) The presence of Prof. Sami Naïr, with whom our team collaborates closely, deserves a special mention. We have made use of the opportunity provided by Prof. Sami Naïr’s stay in Valencia during academic Year 95-96 to contrast the processes of the investigations carried out by the team he leads and our own. As you probably know, two kinds of activities are held within the framework of the Chair of Contemporary Thought of the Cañada Blanch Foundation, for which Prof. Sami Naïr has been responsible and of whose committee is Prof. Javier de Lucas a member. Moreover, several seminars, such as those delivered by Prof. Regis Debray and C. Castoriadis. Apart from this, during academic year 97-98, Prof. Naïr holds a BBV chair  to study for three months in Valencia the politological dimensions of citizenship and to deliver a seminar on this topic.  During the Years 97-99, Professor Ruth Mestre coordinated the Chair of Contemporary Thought of the Cañada Blanch Foundation

D) We keep also a close collaboration with Spanish researchers of the universities of Zaragoza and La Rioja (lead by Prof. Calvo) and with three LatinAmerican groups  (the one lead by prof. Carcova at the Univ. of Buenos Aires, the one lead by Prof. Moncayo at the Universidad Nacional of Colombia and the one lead by Prof. Correas at the UNAM of México) to tackle social rights problems in those geographical areas through an Alpha network

E) We can also mention three other groups with which we collaborate: the group of sociologists and anthropologists lead by the professor of the Universidad Autónoma of Madrid Carlos Giménez, the Hegoa Seminar of the Universidad del País Vasco  and the International Institute for Legal Sociology of Oñati  in teaching programs approaching multiculturalism (in the master in Sociology of Law and in postgraduate courses) , for which we counted on researchers of the Institute who where working on doctoral theses on the topic.

F) A forum on the topic of citizenship during the academic year 95-96 at the  European Universiy Institute of Florence (Italy) was held. Several working sessions took place within this framework: Citizenship, a Contested Ideal (October, 1995); Social and Political Citizenship in a Word of Migration (February, 1996), Multiculturalism. Minorities and Citizenship (April, 1996) and European Citizenship: An Institutional Challenge (June, 1996).

H) The Human Rights National Network, which was constituted December 14 and 15, 2006 at the  First Meeting of Investigation and University Teaching on Human Rights,held by the Human Rights Institute Bartolomé de las Casas of Universidad Carlos III of Madrid and Human Rights Institute of Universitat de València. It is worth pointing out immigration and citizenship among the lines of work developed by the several entities of this network, which favoured an exchange of experiences and knowledge of our field of interest

I) Counselling activities: some team members have counselled the Parliamentary Group of CiU about immigrants’ social rights in relation to the amendments to the Law Reform Project of LO4/2000 and the PSOE as well. Besides, Prof. De Lucas has been asked to intervene in a parliamentary appearance in the Subcommittee created by the Constitutional Commission of Congress about the Plan of immigrants’  integration (GRECO) and, in 2007, he has been asked to appear as an expert before the Subcommittee of Immigration of the Congress of Deputies to discuss the political rights of immigrants on September 20, 2007.

J) In LatinAmerica the team, with the funds of the AECI, is part of a Thematic network of postgraduate teaching on fundamental rights and democracy, coordinated by the Human Rights Institute Bartolomé de las Casas of Universidad Carlos III of Madrid, where there is an exchange with universities of Ecuador, Bolivia and Peru.

K) In Europe we participate in the consolidation of the European research network for the prevention of discrimination, promoted by three European research teams: Interights, European Roma Rights Center (ERRC) and Migration Policy Group (MPG). Our team has actively taken part in the European group about anti-discrimination law promoted by Interights, European Roma Rights Center (ERRC) and Migration Policy Group (MPG). The project titled “Implementing European Anti-Discrimination Law has been fostered by the Human Rights Commissioner of the Czech Republic. Several of our team members are going to participate in the activities held by this European Group that got started in April, 2002. The project was addressed to 15 members of the European Union and the 11 aspiring countries.

L) Also in Europe we work on creating European network around  problems of multiculturality. For this we are in contact with several research teams such as the Centre for research in ethnic relations (CRER), University of Warwick, U.K., which is renowned not only in the U.K. but in the whole Europe. Besides,it has the support of the European Commission regarding the program Marie Curie- Improving human research potential and the socio-economic Knowledge Base