Research Fellowship at VCML

The Vienna Centre for Migration Law (VCML) offers academics with research interests in the field of migration the opportunity to complete a guest stay as a Research Fellow.

Fellows have access to the scientific infrastructure of the VCML, can network with experts and participate in events at the center. The stay enables an in-depth examination of current issues in migration law in a dynamic research environment.

If you are interested, please contact us at: migration.rewi@univie.ac.at

VCML Fellows 2025

 

 

Natalie Maurer

 

Short bio

Natalie Maurer studied law at the Universities of Heidelberg and Gießen. During her studies, she worked as a student assistant in the interdisciplinary DFG research project “Human Rights Discourses in the Migration Society” (MeDiMi) and in the migration law firm of Prof. Dr. Stephan Hocks. Since 2023, she has coordinated the Refugee Law Clinic Giessen, where she has been offering legal advice on a voluntary basis since 2019. Her areas of interest include asylum and residence law, European constitutional law, human rights, in particular socio-economic human rights and feminist jurisprudence. Her first state examination in law was funded by a scholarship from the Friedrich Ebert Foundation and awarded by the study prize of the Juristische Studiengesellschaft Gießen e.V. and by the Hessian Ministry of Justice and the Rule of Law.

 

Description of the research project

Her doctoral project, supervised by Prof. Dr. Jürgen Bast, has the working title “Illegalized employed migrants in Union law”. The work examines legal acts that address the employment of migrants who are illegalized under residence law. It takes a broad approach in order to identify the policy areas affected, the measures taken and the conflicts between them. The aim of the study is to investigate the hypothesis that “conflict situations” exist between these legal acts – on the one hand in the form of norm collisions and on the other through different framings of the phenomenon. According to a further hypothesis of the study, these conflicts can be resolved through an approach that places greater emphasis on fundamental and human rights obligations and is required under EU constitutional law.

 

 

Niklas Cuno

 

Short bio
Mark Niklas Cuno studied Law with a specialization in Migration Law at the University of Halle. During his studies, he was a student assistant at the Chair of Public Law and the associated Research Unit for Migration Law under Prof. Dr. Winfried Kluth. Since January 2025, he has been working as a PhD researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology. Since March 2025, he has been a lecturer at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg for a seminar on Migration Law (Praxisprojekt Migrationsrecht).

 

Description of the research project
His dissertation project, supervised by Prof. Dr. Marie-Claire Foblets, Prof. Dr. Constantin Hruschka, and Dr. Katia Bianchini, examines subsidiary protection for people who have fled conflict situations from a legal anthropological perspective.

 

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

 

Josh Friedman

 

Short bio
Josh Friedman is a human rights lawyer and development cooperation implementer with more than 25 years’ experience working primarily in the U.S., East Africa, and Central Asia on migration and displacement issues. Earlier in 2025, he was the Practitioner in Residence at the DePaul Migration Collaborative of DePaul University in Chicago. Since 2021, he has run a consultancy firm in Vienna focused on evaluation of development and humanitarian projects globally, with an emphasis on projects working on peace-building and the rights of migrants. Prior to that, Josh practiced law as a gender violence prosecutor and land rights attorney; managed human rights programming for refugees in the Global South; and oversaw regional migration management projects.

 

Description of the research project
His current research project builds on his research at DePaul on the right to adequate food and the right to adequate housing for recognized refugees in Chicago and Vienna using the lens of international human rights law to analyze national practice. The research emphasizes the relevant legal entitlements and to what extent those benefits actually promote the rights to food and housing for refugees in both cities, as well as what lessons can be learned that have broader application in Europe and North America.

 

 

 

Anna Kompatscher

 

Short bio
Anna Kompatscher studied law at the Università degli Studi di Trieste (Italy) with an Erasmus stay in Montpellier (France) and a research stay in Freiburg im Breisgau (Germany). Then she pursued a Master’s in European Political and Governance studies at the College of Europe in Bruges (Belgium). After working for NGOs in France and Belgium, she began working as a research associate for Prof. Anna Katharina Mangold at the University of Flensburg in September 2021. There, she teaches classes on “EU law” and “EU migration law and politics”. Her areas of interest include migration law and human rights, with a particular focus on social human rights.

 

Description of the research project
Her PhD project has the preliminary title “The right to healthcare for undocumented migrants in France, Germany and Italy”. It is conducted in a co-tutelle programme between Bucerius Law School in Hamburg and Université Paris 1 Sorbonne, and supervised by Prof. Anna Katharina Mangold, Prof. Ségolène Barbou Des Places, and Prof. Felix Hanschmann. In this comparative study, Anna Kompatscher examines healthcare cost coverage for undocumented migrants in the three countries. The work investigates the hypothesis that, despite the common International and European human rights framework, the extent of healthcare costs covered largely depends on fundamental constitutional norms relating to healthcare and the overall financing systems for healthcare in these countries