Dr. Claire Higgins is a historian and Senior Research Fellow at the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law at UNSW in Sydney. She holds a doctorate in history from the University of Oxford and is the author of Asylum by Boat: Origins of Australia’s refugee policy (NewSouth, 2017). Claire’s research focuses on in-country programs and other protected entry procedures for refugees. In 2018 Claire was a Fulbright Postdoctoral Scholar at ISIM undertaking comparative research on the history of the U.S. refugee admissions program. As a Postdoctoral Fellow at the European University Institute in 2017, Claire researched Italy’s innovative Humanitarian Corridors program which enables Syrian asylum seekers to safely claim protection in Italy. Claire founded and convenes the Kaldor Centre’s Emerging Scholars Network.

UNSW Sydney has awarded a 'UNSW USA Networks of Excellence Mobility Grant' worth $5000 to Dr. Claire Higgins of UNSW's Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law and ISIM Research Fellow Professor Elizabeth Ferris. The grant will fund a research project titled ‘Rescue and Responsibility-Sharing: the Protected Transfer Arrangement for refugees in Costa Rica’, which examines a scheme established under the Obama administration that enables refugees from Central America to be safely transferred out of their home countries and into Costa Rica, where they await resettlement to third countries.

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