Globally, more than 100 million people are forced to live far from their homes, cities and nations due to war, persecution of various kind and climate change (UNHCR 2022). Out of this dramatic number, only 5% have access to higher education (UNHCR, 2021). Approximately 7 million people holding international protection are hosted in the EU Countries, people settled with the hope of finding security, continuing their studies and building a future (Harðardóttir & Jónsson, 2021). This situation was further exacerbated by the crisis in Ukraine. However, at least in Italy, little or no research is available on the refugee’s condition in higher education.

Against this framework and due to the lack of specific research in the area, the generative research question of this study seeks to examine the process of reception and inclusion of refugee students at the University of Bologna. More precisely, the study aims to investigate, describe, and analyze the measures taken and the services offered to ensure students with a background of forced migration the access to degree programs, fundings, and support activities, as well as the role played by various actors within the process. The purpose is to contribute to the creation of a common knowledge useful to improve the overall process and guide future developments and comparisons with other universities.
The overall analysis includes two sets of data, but this paper will discuss the empirical part:
National and regional regulations, University resolutions, decrees and agreements. This first data set has allowed to understand the key elements that characterize the reception of students with a history of forced migration.
Data generated based on qualitative empirical research, as described in the following section.
Firstly, it has been noted that the university ensures different ways of access, and the initiative Unibo for Refugees represents the general framework for all initiatives since 2015-2016. Through the adoption of facilitation of the enrollment process, the project makes it possible for asylum seekers to enroll in single courses and it funds scholarships (12) and study awards (10) for refugees and displaced students. Other opportunities are the CRUI grants funded by the Ministry of Home affair and the UNICORE project, in which the University collaborated with UNHCR to pilot the Italian model of university corridors. The university has also responded to the recent humanitarian crises in Afghanistan and Ukraine accepting students from the second semester of 2021-2022. The measures have been taken in emergency circumstances and have led to differences in the reception processes.
From the analysis of the data it emerged that the University adopts channeled procedural facilitation measures in support of registration, funds scholarships and provides services and activities in cooperation with the regional institution for the right to study and other actors. The international desk staff successfully deals with technical enrollment aspects but lacks the resources to ensure in-process and post-graduation support.

A Grounded Theory (GT) method was selected since there is no established prior knowledge of the phenomenon of the reception process of refugee students at the University of Bologna. A constructivist GT was adopted (Charmaz, 2012; Tarozzi, 2020) where the analysis of objective data is intertwined with the analysis of the meanings that participants attribute to their actions and their contexts, producing understandable and useful insights for those working in the area under investigation (Tarozzi, 2020). Data collection adopted the logic of theoretical sampling which allows the selection of participants holding useful knowledge and develops according to the needs for clarification and insights emerging from the analysis (Tarozzi, 2020). The first study sample was identified through the purposive sampling strategy, while additional key informants were involved through snowball sampling. Data collection took place between late July and December 2022. • 6 semi-structured interviews lasting 45 minutes on average were carried out with key informants. 5 were individual interviews, while 1 was carried out with two participants simultaneously as their request. All interviews were audio and video recorded, with the consent of the respondents, and conducted remotely. • 1 particant observation lasted about 4h at the University of Bologna’s International desk on October 12, 2022. 3 individual interviews were observed between a staff member and students at their first contact with the University. The coding procedure that guided the data analysis was the following: - Open coding. In this phase attention was paid to the smallest parts of text and the analysis was opened in all possible directions. The open coding phase generated 632 labels and ended with the definition of 12 proto-categories. - Focused Coding. At this stage, data analysis developed through the insights generated from the juxtaposition of the 12 proto-categories and the new and emerging labels. The focus coding phase ended with the emergence of three main concept areas. - Theoretical Coding. At this stage, through a deep conceptualizing process, the core category was identified. The core category links all the concept areas previously emerged and explains the reception process of refugee students in its essence.

The University of Bologna reception system consists of a set of projects, initiatives and various measures aimed at students defined as: Refugeee: holding international, subsidiary or special protection Displaced person: holding temporary protection Asylum seeker The number of students with these characteristics is not particularly high although it is steadily increasing, especially after the Ukrainian crisis. The main characteristic of the inclusive approach with which the university over the years has welcomed refugees is the channeling of procedures and the diversification of responses based on users’ heterogeneity. Thus, the differentiation and individualization of responses must be considered an added value, even though, the lack of standardized procedures results the main critical aspect of the entire process, as it places an excessive workload on the staff involved. Furthermore, it emerges that the measures taken by the University are effective in ensuring access to the educational system but not as much attention is paid to other key steps: in-process support and post-graduation orienteering. In conclusion, given the phenomenon’s general upward trend and the consequent demand to provide medium and long-term solutions, it emerges the need to standardize the reception process, provide an in-process support and strengthening and empowering the administrative staff of the University of Bologna’s international desk.

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