Heaven Crawley

Heaven Crawley is Professor of International Migration at Coventry University’s Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations (CTPSR) and Senior Research Associate at the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) and Refugee Law Initiative. Educated at the Universities of Sussex (1989-1994) and Oxford (1995-1999), Heaven has nearly 25 years' experience of undertaking research on international migration in a wide range of institutional settings (government, voluntary sector, national and international organisations, academia). She was previously head of asylum and migration research at the UK Home Office (2000-2), Associate Director at the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) (2002-4) and managed an international research consultancy (2004-6) before returning to academia to establish the Centre for Migration Policy Research at Swansea University (2006-14).

Heaven’s research focuses on the lived experiences of refugees and migrants. Over the past 25 years she has worked in a range of institutional settings including government, civil society and the UN, and published extensively on asylum and migration policy and practice in the UK and Europe. Her breadth of experience working with a wide range of stakeholders and with migrants, refugees and asylum seekers mean that Heaven is widely regarded as one of the leading experts on UK asylum and migration policy and practice. Heaven has served as a specialist adviser to the Home Affairs Committee and Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR) on three separate occasions. She is a patron of the Baobab Centre for Young Survivors in Exile and Asylum Justice and a Trustee of Migrant Voice.

In 2012 Heaven was conferred the title of Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS) in recognition of her contribution to the social sciences and to evidence-based policy making.