Dr. Katerina Glyniadaki is an Visiting Fellow at the European Institute. 

Katerina’s research focuses on the implementation of migration policies across different countries in Europe and Africa. It takes an interdisciplinary comparative approach, focuses on micro-level processes, and looks at how individual identities and decisions may influence policy outcomes. More specifically, it examines how street-level bureaucrats in migration management, and service delivery more generally, make discretionary decisions under conditions of high uncertainty, thereby shaping policy in practice. Her work contributes to the broader fields of Migration Policy and Public Policy/Administration.  

At present, Katerina is carrying out a research project concerning return migration in West Africa, in collaboration with Dr. Nora Ratzmann (Research Leader at the DeZIM-Institute Berlin) and Ms. Julia Stier (Researcher at the WZB Berlin Social Science Centre). This focuses on Senegalese migrant returnees who have previously attempted to or migrated to Europe and are now active in implementing migration information initiatives, funded by international donors. The project, financed by the European Institute’s Seed Fund (2021-2022), investigates how such actors construe their role as ‘migration experts’ and how, in turn, that shapes the (anti-) migration message they convey to their compatriots.   

Katerina’s PhD Thesis (European Institute, 2020) has examined the implementation of migration policies in Athens and Berlin, during the so-called European migration crisis of 2015 -2017. Her research was based on 150 qualitative interviews with policy implementers from the public, private and third sectors, and combined theoretical perspectives from public administration and social psychology.

Katerina is also a head tutor at LSE Executive Education and the online certificate course Risk and Crisis Management. She has recently taught at the LSE School of Public Policy and the programmes: Master of Public Administration, Executive Master of Public Administration and Executive Master of Public Policy.

In parallel with pursuing an academic career, Katerina worked for 2.5 years at the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where she gained first-hand experience in public policy. She worked for one year at the C4 Directorate for Justice, Home Affairs, Migration and Schengen, under the General Directorate for EU Affairs, and the rest of the time at the newly founded Embassy of Greece in Dakar, Senegal.

Katerina holds a PhD in Migration Policy from the European Institute, LSE, as well as an MA in Sociology (University of California, Riverside) and an MPhil is Social Psychology (University of Cambridge).