Biography
Erica is a Research Fellow in Geography/Sussex Centre Migration Research (SCMR). Her research focuses on immigration politics and policymaking. Erica's book Labour's Immigration Policy: The Making of the Migration State was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2018.
Erica currently works on a EU funded (H2020) research project entitled ‘Evaluation of the Common European Asylum System under Pressure and Recommendations for Further Development’ (CEASEVAL). Previously Erica was a Research Fellow for the Institute for Employment Studies (IES) and Research Fellow for the Fp7 project 'Temporary versus Permanent Migration' (Temper) at the University of Sussex (Dept Politics) developing a Immigration Policy Index (IMPOL) dataset.
Erica received her BA in Sociology in 2008 (First Class) and MA in Migration Studies in 2009 (Distinction). After receiving funding from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) in 2010, Erica completed an MSc in Comparative and Cross Cultural Research Methods (Distinction) and her Dphil in Politics in 2014 at the University of Sussex (typographical corrections only).
Erica writes regularly for the Conversation, LSE blogs and has previously written for Open Democracy, politics.co.uk, IES, New Left Project , Institute for Public Policy (IPPR), Political Anthropologist and has provided comment for the Guardian. She featured in BBC Radio 4 Briefing Rooms (presented by David Aaronovitch) in 2018 where she discussed her book and Home Office culture, listen here
Role
Research Fellow
Community and Business
2018: Research Associate, Institute for Employment Studies (IES), Refugees Into Sustinable Employment (RISE) project http://www.renaisi.com/rise/
2017-18: Research Fellow, Institute for Employment Studies (IES).
2013: Consultant for IPPR on their Progressive Migration/Fair and democratic migration policy: a principled framework. http://www.ippr.org/publications/one-step-forward-two-steps-back-evaluating-the-institutions-of-british-immigration-policymaking
2012: ESRC internship Research Officer at the Migration and Border Analysis in the Home Office (Home Office Science).
2011-2013: Research assistant for the Home Office, SCMR and consultant group GVA on evaluating the UK's participation in the refugee Gateway programme.
Qualifications
2014 PhD Politics
2010 MSc Comparative and Cross-Cultural Research Methods (Distinction)
2009 MA Migration Studies (Distinction)
2008 BA Sociology (First Class Hons)
Activities
Conference papers:
'Fusing Policy and Shifting Paradigms: UK Immigration Policy and the A8 Case', presented at Migration Research in Progress: A Graduate Student's Workshop, Sussex Centre for Migration Research, University of Sussex, 16-17th July 2011.
'Learning to change: evidence based policymaking and UK immigration policy change in the 2000s', presented at the Migration and Citizenship workshop, University of Edinburgh, 5th October 2012.
'From Zero Migration to the Migration State: Whitehall Cultures, Institutional Conversion and Policy Change', presented at PSAI Annual Conference, Derry, 19-21st October 2012.
'Lobbying with evidence: challenging governance and explaining UK immigration policy change', presented at the PSA graduate network conference, University of Oxford, 24th November 2012.
‘Exploring the corridors of power: explaining UK immigration policy change through new institutionalism’, presented at PSA annual conference, Cardiff, 27th March 2013.
‘Political parties and immigration policy change in Britain: do parties matter?’, presented at Policy and Politics annual conference, Bristol, 17-18th September 2013.
'Interests, ideas and institutions: explaining immigration policy change in Britain', presented at the research-in-progress seminar to the Sussex European Institute/Politics, University of Sussex, 22nd January 2014