Networking Resources

Academia.edu, "Refugee Studies" [access]
- This resource was set up to answer the question, "Who's researching what?" After registering, you can "can create an easy-to-maintain academic webpage, listing your research interests and any papers you have written," "keep track of the latest developments in your research area - the latest papers, talks, blog posts and status updates," and "find people with similar research interests to you." There are currently 114 people with research interests in "refugee studies."
- Note: ResearchGATE seems to be similar to Academia.edu, however, it does not appear to offer a way to locate researchers with an interest in "refugee studies" or "forced migration studies"; the search engine retrieves plenty of literature references to these terms, though, so it may be worth exploring further.

Enhanced Learning and Research for Humanitarian Assistance (ELRHA) [web site]
- This is the "first collaborative network dedicated to supporting partnerships between Higher Education institutions in the UK and humanitarian organisations and partners around the world." It does this by identifying appropriate academic institutions as partners for humanitarian groups with research needs, and appropriate humanitarian groups as partners for academic institutions with field needs. ELRHA is also investigating the need for professional accreditation of humanitarian workers.

Humanitarian Law and Policy Forum [web site]
- This forum was established as a corollary to the online courses offered by Harvard's Program on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research. With registration, you can join discussions, access resources and multimedia, and participate in live seminars.

International Humanitarian Studies Association (IHSA) [web site]
- This is a new "network of people engaged in the study of humanitarian crises caused by natural disaster, conflict or political instability." The first World Conference on Humanitarian Studies which established the association was held in February 2009. The next conference will be held at Tufts University in June 2011. Free membership is offered until mid-2011.

Refugee Research Network [web site]
- This network was created to "encourage as much online collaboration, networking and information-sharing among researchers doing work on refugee and forced migration-related issues as possible." The site aims to achieve these goals by making a variety of tools available to researchers in the form of blogs, forums, working groups, research clusters, and providing space for sharing content, event announcements, research products, and profiles.

[Image credit: Screenshot of Academia.edu taken from "Social networking with a brain: a critical review of academic sites."]

Tagged Web Sites/Tools.