Dr Roxana Barbulescu

Profile

Roxana Barbulescu is Associate Professor in the School of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Leeds, UK. Her research focuses on migration, race, and citizenship from a rights-based perspective, advancing theoretically informed and empirically grounded understandings of belonging, access to rights, labour shortages, and labour precarity and inequality. Her work explores how migrants, refugees, and receiving communities negotiate belonging, engage with bureaucratic systems, and create pathways to inclusion, civic participation, and social justice. She has joined the University of Leeds in 2016 as University Academic Fellow (UAF) under the 250 Great Minds Programme in 2016 and was previous at The University of Southampton (2015), Colleague of Europe (Warsaw) (2014) and University of Sheffield (2013). She holds a PhD in Political and Social Sciences from the European University Institute and a Masters of Arts in Intercultural Humanties from Jacobs University Bremen (Germany).

Her work has been published in international peer reviewed journals including International Migration, Migration Studies, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Mediterranean Politics and includes the following books 1) Migrant Integration in Changing Europe, Immigrants, European Citizenship and Co-Ethnics in Italy and Spain (2019 Notre Dame University Press, US, 2019) ,2) Everyday Europe. Social Transnationalism in an Unsettled Continent (2019 Bristol: Policy Press with Recchi Ettore, Adrian Favell, Fulya Apaydin, Michael Braun, Irina Ciornei, Nail Cunningham, Juan Diez Medrano, Deniz Neriman Duru, Laurie Hanquinet, Janne Solgaard Jensen, Steffan Poetzchke, David Reimer, Justyna Salamonska, Mike Savage and Albert Varela) and Revising the Integration-Citizenship Nexus in Europe. Sites, Policies and Bureaucracies of Belonging. (2023, Springer Imiscoe Research Series with Sara Wallace Goodman and Luicy Pedroza).

Recent research projects:

ESRC – Feeding the Nation Seasonal workers and food security (ES/V015257/1, £311,811) Roxana Barbulescu (PI) is a collaboration with Professor Carlos Varga Silva (University of Oxford COMPAS Co-I) and Dr Bethany Robertson (PDRA) and and it was developed with key impact partners DEFRA and the charity New Europeans UK and Seraphus (e.g. co-produced multimedia, multi-language toolkit ) In this project I have examined seasonal agricultural migration in advanced economies, and the dependencies and tensions that emerge between migrants’ dreams and aspirations, ethical migration recruitment and labour shortages that make up our food. The project uses an arts-based approch to engage with wider audience. Artistic illustrator Sarah Hannis has developed illustrations from video-diaries kept by migrants and led to three exhibitions at the Museum of English Rural Life (Migrant Workers. The Rasberry Planter; Summer on a Strawberry Farm; Hidden Rural Mobilities Curator Dr Ollie Douglas) With folk duo Peddler // Russell a song was co-produced with the fond being lauched at the Sidmouth Festival Folk Festival in East Devon. Visit project website for interactive resources and new developemnts of this project here.

Dr Barbulescu engages with policy makers and her research has been used by Defra, Defra Seasonal Worker Taskforce, Food Standards Agency, Low Pay Commission, Scottish Goverment and the OECD. She contributes routinely to public inquiries and her research has been cited by the House of Lords (2026) and House of Commons (2021).

Low Pay Commission ‘Accommodation Offset, National Minimum Wage and Migrant Workers’, Dr Roxana Barbulescu (PI) and Dr Bethany Robertson (Co-I) September 2022-December 2022, £12,000

ESRC IAA, Seasonal workers and low skilled migration – global regimes and international best Practices, £8,944 Dr Roxana Barbulescu (PI)

ESRC Northern Exposure: Race, Nation and Disaffection in "Ordinary" Towns and Cities after Brexit, Governance Aftre Brexit ESRC Scheme January 2020-May 2022, PI Professor Adrian Favell, Co-Investigators Dr Roxana Barbulescu, Prof Yasmin Hussain, Dr Andrew Wallace, Prof Paul Bagguley, Dr Albert Varela, Dr Zyama Ciupijus (ES/S007717/1 £750,000)

Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 894303 ‘RETORNO: Interventions on Social Determinants of Health – A comparative study of returned migrants from the UK and Spain post Brexit referendum’ , Dr Pilar Serrano (Co-I Dr Roxana Barbulescu together with Dr Ana Manzano and Prof. Adrian Favell) April 2021-22 €112,466.88

Food Standards Agency Impact of labour shortages in food systems, September 2021-March 2022, value £48,700 Co-Investigator Dr Roxana Barbulescu

Postdoctoral Fellowship, Basque Government Spain, 2+2, University of Deusto- University of Leeds Dr Simona Sokolovska September 2023-2027 euros 144,000 Mentor Dr Roxana Barbulescu

Research England Visual methodologies to study ‘integration’ in a declining cities, in partnership with Runnymede Trust, Research England, January-March 2020, Dr Roxana Barbulescu PI value £4865

ESRC IAA ‘Brexit and its Impact on Diversity and Community Relations in Northern Towns’ (PI together with Adrian Favell) University of Leeds, March 2017-March 2018. PI Adrian Favell, Co-Investigator Dr Roxana Barbulescu £14, 113 (project website http://cers.leeds.ac.uk/commission-on-diversity-in-northern-towns/ )

ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowship Dr Marketa Dolezolova (PhD) University of Manchester £38,700 Roma in Northern England: Creating Interventions towards a Better Quality of Life .Mentor: Dr Roxana Barbulescu

Postdoctoral Fellowship at the College of Europe (Natolin Campus Warsaw, 32,000 Euros) Human Rights, Asylum and Rescue at Sea; 2014 PI Dr Roxana Barbulescu

Center for the Study of Democratic Citizenship (CSDC), University of Montreal Canada, ‘Mapping Anti-Roma prejudice in European Union’ MARP, September 2014-May 2015 PI Laurie Beaudonnet and Co-I Allison Harell, value CAD 15,000.

Professional Service

I serve as BSA SG Convenor Migration and Asylum and expert at EUI GLOBACIT Citizenship Observatory.

I sit on the Editorial board of Sociology , Racial and Ethnic Studies and Advisory Board of Comparative Migration Studies, and a book series editor at Liverpool University Press (Migration and Identities) I am a member of the UK Peer Review College has served as evaluator for various funding agencies including ESRC (UK), Horizon 2020 (EU), DAAD (Germany) and Agencia Espanola de la Investigacion (Spain), Czech Science Foundation (Czech Pepublic) Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada/ Conseil de recherches en sciences humaines du Canada

Awards

2022 Ramon y Cajal Award (Spain).

2025 Global Impact Faculty Partnership Award, University of Leeds.

PhD students (completed)

Mona Makinjadbanadaki
Ayu Kusumastuti
Tesfalem Yemane
Sidharth Shankar
Jianxia Lin
Alex Chelegeer
Kheira Arrouche
Alessandro Modanesi

Responsibilities

• Director Pathway Civil Society, Democracy and Development White Rose Doctoral Training Partnership
• Associate Director, Global Food and Environment Institute
• Impact Lead

Research interests

Media coverage and contributions:

Newspapers: Liberation. Feb 2025 «Retourne d’où tu viens» : l’émission de téléréalité polémique sur l’immigration enflamme le Royaume-Uni In English here ; The Guardian (2019) and (2015)

TV: ITV Calendar (2023); BBC News Channel live (2018) Interview on the impact of Brexit on migration and local communities in the North of England.

Radio:BBC World News ( August 2022); BBC Radio 5 Live (November 2018)

Primary investigator (PI)

• Feeding the nation: seasonal migrant workers and food security during COVID-19 pandemic

Co-investigator (Co-I)

• Northern Exposure: Race, Nation and Disaffection in "Ordinary" Towns and Cities after Brexit
• RETORNO: Interventions on Social Determinants of Health
• Roma in Northern England: Creating interventions towards a better quality of life

Qualifications

• PhD in Political and Social Studies European University Institute, Italy
• MRes Political and Social Studies European University Institute, Italy
• MA Intercultural Humanities, Jacobs University Bremen, Germany
• Year Abroad Philosophy, University of Bielefeld, Germany
• BA Sociology and Philosophy, University of Craiova Romania

Professional memberships

• BSA
• IMISCOE

Research groups and institutes

• Leeds Social Science Institute

Current postgraduate researchers

• Mona Makinejad