Join us for the regional launch of the Commission on the Integration of Refugees report From Arrival to Integration: Building communities for refugees and for Britain.

The Report and its recommendations is a landmark study into the integration of refugees in the UK. Over the last 2 years, the Commission has undertaken the most significant and detailed exploration of these issues in a generation, with commissioned research, local hearings across the country and evidence submitted from organisations and individuals with a vast range of experience. The commissioners, who represent very different expert perspectives from across the political spectrum, are pleased to invite you to this event, where they will reveal its key findings and shared recommendations. This event does not represent the completion of the Commission - but the beginning of major efforts to ensure a new deal can be made for refugees in the UK, one that is fair, deliverable and accountable. A deal that works for everyone, both refugees and wider British society.

18:00-19:00 Report launch and presentations in Nash Lecture Theatre, King's Building (Strand Campus)
19:00-19:30 Panel discussion and Q&A with audience 
19:30 Drinks reception for panellists and audience in Somerset Room (Strand Campus)
20:30 Drinks reception end

Book your ticket here.


About the speakers

Dr Edward Kessler, MBE is Founder President of the Woolf Institute and a leading thinker in interfaith relations, primarily, Jewish-Christian-Muslim Relations, as well as Chair of the Commission on the Integration of Refugees. He founded the Woolf Institute, originally called the Centre for Jewish-Christian Relations, 1998 and was elected Fellow of St Edmund's College in 2002; in 2007, Dr Kessler was described by The Times Higher Education Supplement (London) as 'probably the most prolific interfaith figure in British academia' and in 2011 was awarded an MBE for services to interfaith relations. He has written or edited 12 books, including An Introduction to Jewish-Christian Relations (Cambridge, 2010), Jews, Christians and Muslims in Encounter (SCM, 2013) and Jesus (The History Press, 2016). His Documentary History of Jewish-Christian Relations is being published by Cambridge in 2024. In 2024, he was awarded the Seelisberg Prize for his contribution to fostering Jewish-Christian relations. He was Convenor and Vice-Chair of the Commission on Religion and Belief in British Public Life (2013-15), which published a major policy report entitled, Living with Difference and Principal Investigator of the Woolf Diversity Study, a study of diversity in England and Wales (2017-19), which published a major policy report entitled, How We Get Along. Kessler began plans to convene an independent UK Commission in January 2022 on the Integration of Refugees, which was launched in November. Lord Carlile was appointed Chair and Bishop Guli Francis-Dehqan, Vice Chair for the first year and he took over in 2023. The Commission took evidence at hearings around the UK and published its report, From Arrival to Integration in March 2024. In 2023 he was appointed Chair of the Advisory Board overseeing the unification of Reform and Liberal Judaism.

Mishka Pillay is a Steering Group member and Commissioner on the Commision on the Integration of Refugees. He is a campaigner and advocate with a focus on refugee rights and immigration detention in the UK. He is a co-founder of A&M Consultancy, which is a venture of two consultants with first-hand experience of the UK’s asylum and immigration system. He has a particular focus on lived experience leadership and co-production and meaningful involvement of people with lived experience. Mishka is a member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists Working Group for Mental Health and Forced Migration and is also a trustee of Freedom from Torture.

Hanna Kienzler is Professor of Global Health in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine and Co-Director of the ESRC Centre for Society and Mental Health at King’s College London. She investigates how systemic violence, ethnic conflict, and complex emergencies intersect with health and mental health outcomes in the occupied Palestinian territory, Kosovo, and, among refugees, in the UK. She conducts research on the mental health impacts of war and trauma on survivors; on what it means for persons with severe mental illness to live and participate in their respective communities; and on humanitarian and mental health interventions in fragile states. She is also co-founder of the Refugee Mental Health & Place network.

 

Cornelius Katona is Honorary Medical and Research Director of the Helen Bamber Foundation - a human rights charity working with asylum seekers and refugees and Hon Professor in the Division of Psychiatry at University College London. He is the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ lead on Refugee and Asylum Mental Health. He was Chair of the Steering Group for the Commission on the Integration of Refugees which published its report and recommendations in March 2024. He was a member of the Committee that updated NICE guidelines on PTSD. He has published more than 300 papers and written/edited 16 books. In 2019 he was awarded the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ Honorary Fellowship, the College’s highest honour, for his ‘outstanding service to psychiatry’.

 

Accessibility information

For more information about access to buildings at King's, please visit the AccessAble guide online. Please do not hesitate to contact us at csmh@kcl.ac.uk to further discuss any access requirements, arrangements for companions, or to find out more details about this event.