The Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS)

Nicholas Van Hear is a Senior Researcher and Deputy Director at COMPAS, primarily working on projects in the Flows and Dynamics cluster. With a background in development studies, he works on forced migration, conflict, development, diaspora, transnationalism and related issues, and has field experience in Africa, the Middle East, South Asia and Europe.

Before joining COMPAS when it was launched in 2003, he held senior research posts at the Refugee Studies Centre in Oxford (1990-2000) and at the Danish Centre for Development Research in Copenhagen (2000-2003). His books include New Diasporas (London: Routledge, 1998), The Migration-Development Nexus (Geneva: International Organisation for Migration, 2003), and Catching Fire: Containing forced migration in a volatile world (Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield, 2006).

He has been a consultant for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the UN Development Programme (UNDP), the European Commission, the UK Department for International Development (DfID), the UK Home Office, the UK National Audit Office, the Danish International Development Agency (Danida), and other international agencies.