Background

Hassan Bousetta has a degree in political science and public administration, awarded by the University of Liège in 1993. Two years later he gained a specialised degree in the management of problems in developing countries. He was then successively a researcher at the University of Utrecht, European Research Centre on Migration and Ethnic Relations, at the Catholic University of Brussels, Institute for Political Sociology and Methodology (IPSoM), and Marie Curie Research Fellow at the University of Bristol, Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship. He then came back to Belgium, where he was a researcher at the Catholic University of Leuven (Instituut voor Sociaal en Politiek Opinieonderzoek – ISPO). In 2001 he was awarded a doctorate in Social Sciences by the Catholic University of Brussels, with a thesis entitled ‘Immigration, Post-immigration Politics and the Political Mobilisation of Ethnic Minorities. A comparative Case-Study of Moroccans in Four European Cities.’ He returned to the University of Liège in 2002 as a FNRS research fellow and senior lecturer. Today he is a FNRS qualified researcher. He is continuing his research and teaching at CEDEM, the ULg’s institute of social and human sciences.

In parallel with his academic activities Hassan Bousetta has been and continues to be involved in action on the ground as he is a communal advisor to the city of Liège, and ex-member of the Wallonia-Brussels International Co-operation Council, and has carried out a number of duties within consultation and social action bodies: expert consultant at the Council of Europe, ‘Rights of migrant children’ sub-commission, President of the not for profit organisation, Action Centre for the development of Euro-Mediterranean relations, member of the Federal Commission responsible for the renewal of the organs of the Muslim faith, member of the ‘Migration and Development’ think tank at the National Centre for Co-operation and Development, member of the support group at the King Baudouin Foundation, within the framework of the civil society programme, Islam and Muslims in Belgium and Europe project.