Dr. Ahmad Wali Ahmad Yar, PhD

Dr. Ahmad Wali Ahmad Yar is Postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of Migration and Globalisation at the University for Continuing Education Krems.

• Postdoctoral researcher in the projects SYREALITY and RESTATE
• Co-coordinator of the research cluster “Migration Processes and Drivers”
• External lecturer at the Brussels School of Governance (BSoG), Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), teaching MA courses and supervising MA theses

Dr. Ahmad Yar is a migration scholar whose work lies at the intersection of migration governance, refugee agency, political participation, and state–society relations. At the University for Continuing Education Krems, his research focuses on how refugees perceive, encounter, and engage with state institutions across displacement contexts, and how legal status, political opportunity structures, and lived experiences shape forms of participation, mobilisation, and trust in the state.

Prior to joining Krems, he was a postdoctoral researcher at the Brussels Institute for Social and Population Studies (BRISPO) at Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), where he also completed his PhD in Sociology. His doctoral research examined international migration data and irregular migration trajectories, showing how aspirations, class, gender, and experiences of state violence shape mobility decisions across pre-departure, transit, and arrival phases. His work demonstrated that irregular migration journeys are phased and non-linear, and that constrained yet conscious decision-making plays a decisive role in migration outcomes.

Dr. Ahmad Yar has extensive experience in large European research projects, including Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe initiatives such as HumMingBird and MIrreM. He has conducted multilingual fieldwork in Belgium, Sweden, and other European contexts, and has combined qualitative interviews, surveys, and institutional analysis in his research.

Before his academic career, he worked as a research assistant at the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) in Brussels, contributing to policy-oriented research on EU asylum and migration governance, migrant integration, and legal migration pathways. Earlier professional experience includes work as an intercultural mediator and interpreter with UNHCR in Central Asia, supporting refugee protection procedures and interactions between displaced persons and state institutions.

He holds a PhD in Sociology, a master’s degree in political science from Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), and a bachelor’s degree in International Relations from Al Farabi Kazakh National University. Being originally from Afghanistan, his work is also shaped by a long-standing interest in the history and current affairs of South and Central Asia, which informs his comparative and transnational perspective on migration, displacement, and diaspora politics.

Alongside his academic work, Dr. Ahmad Yar is deeply engaged in refugee-led and diaspora-based civil society initiatives in Europe. He is President of the Umbrella Refugee Committee, Belgium’s national platform of refugee-led committees, and Secretary-General of the Network of Afghanistan Diaspora Organisations in Europe (NADOE). These roles are closely intertwined with his academic work and reflect a strong commitment to participatory knowledge production, community-based approaches, and recognising refugees and migrants as social, political, and epistemic actors rather than solely as policy targets or research subjects.

Research interests

• Migration governance and state–society relations, including ethnographic and insider researcher approaches

•  Forced migration, refugee political participation, and meaningful participation of refugees

• Diasporas, transnational engagement, diaspora mobilisation, and refugee led actions 

• Irregular migration, regularisation, and integration policies

• Ethics, participation, positionality, and insider methods in migration research

• International migration data, statistics, and migration data infrastructures