"Migrants in Higher education", the network of French institutions

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French institutions have formed a network with a view to structuring and coordinating their capacity to accommodate migrant students. With the assistance of the AUF and all of the financiers who have contributed to its appeal, this process has in particular enabled us to fund the integration programme with enhanced training in French.

The Migrants in Higher Education network ("Migrants dans l'Enseignement Supérieur", MEnS) was founded in September 2017 with the support of France Universités. It groups together and coordinates higher education institutions (France Universités, schools, institutes) and associations, committed to the reception and integration of students and researchers in exile in France.

The members of the MEnS network share the same desire to increase their efforts to help integrate migrant students and work to promote the sharing of experiences, the pooling of information and tools and a dialogue with political institutions.

As such, they set out to alert the public authorities and develop specific responses to the challenges encountered by the institutions that receive the refugee or asylum-seeking students and researchers: access to studies, recognition of degree qualifications, French courses, coordination of activities on a local and national level...

The Campus France Forum joined the MEnS network in 2017 thanks to the work of the workshop dedicated to the sharing of best practices with regard to the reception of migrant students and researchers in France. Mathieu Schneider, Vice Président of the University of Strasbourg and coordinator of the MEnS network, has, among other accomplishments, been able to propose a series of initiatives promoting reflection and the coordination of actions.

Major strides forward for 2019

A list of initial measures was announced to the general assembly of the MEnS network on 25 June 2018 by Graig Monetti, Student Life Advisor to the Ministry of Higher Education and Research:

Increase in the interministerial funding from the Francophone University Association (Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie, AUF) for the AIMES programme;
Access for students under subsidiary protection to grants allocated on the basis of social criteria (worth 3.2 million euros), and access for these students to specific assistance (accommodation…);
Implementation of a specific degree course for the 2019 intake aimed at refugees, available in each volunteering university, which will be certified by the MESR and will authorise grants allocated on the basis of social criteria;
The facilitation of access for refugees to CROUS accommodation, with a stepping up of specific forms of assistance;
Funding in the amount of €2 million for PAUSE, renewed in 2019;
The funding of research programmes focussing on migration within the Institut Convergences in the amount of €13.6 million over 10 years.