Young migration researcher receives Nordjyllandsfonden’s Research Award
News
Published online: 17.04.2026
At the AAU Annual Celebration 2026, researcher Ahlam Chemlali was honoured for her groundbreaking research on how EU border policy shapes lives in transit countries.
By Lea Laursen Pasgaard, AAU Communication and Public Affairs
Photo: William Brændstrup
Nordjyllandsfonden has given Nordjyllandsfonden’s Research Award 2026 to Ahlam Chemlali, postdoc in the Department of Society and Politics. She receives the award for her PhD research project 'Living and Dying in Transit: Violence, Bodies, and Survival in the Tunisian Borderlands'. The project deals with the consequences of EU migration policy and the externalization of border controls to countries outside the EU, especially in North Africa and the Mediterranean region.
Through extensive ethnographic fieldwork in Tunisian and Libyan border areas, she shows that "transit countries" often become long-term or permanent places of residence where people can end up locked in camps and temporary towns without protection.
Ahlam Chemlali analyses the dynamics of involving many actors around the migrants (e.g. smugglers, border guards, humanitarian organizations and EU diplomats) and contributes with new frameworks for understanding transit as a political and gendered condition.
Her work has received substantial international attention and has also influenced policy discussions. She is now continuing her research as head of the Center for the Study of Coercion and Accountability (CECA) and postdoc at AAU with a focus on migration dynamics in Marseille and in other areas on this side of the Mediterranean.
About Nordjyllandsfonden’s Research Award
Nordjyllandsfonden’s Research Award is given to a early-career researcher who in the past year completed and had approved a particularly excellent PhD project.
The recipient is appointed by an expert assessment committee with one representative from each main area. The committee decides on the recipient in conjunction with Nordjyllandsfonden.
The research award is DKK 500,000, of which DKK 425,000 goes to further research.
Translated by LeeAnn Iovanni, AAU Communication and Public Affairs