Policy initiatives from the United Nations and EU institutions have emphasized the need for higher education institutions (HEIs) to fulfil a significant role in green transitioning. However, they tend to fall short of the achievement of this objective. Multiple studies indicate that HEIs assign high importance to the integration of environmental sustainability on a strategic level but generally lack dedicated policies of integration in operational aspects. This paper’s research aim is to provide a meta-study that reviews, analyzes, and assesses the state of the art on research on HEI sustainability. The paper also contributes to the state-of-the-art by mapping institutional sustainability self-assessment models, tools, and guidelines in four prominent research areas: (1) sustainability integration in educational activities, pedagogical perspectives, and systemic transformations; (2) benchmarking sustainability of organizational transformation and operational optimization, and links between developmental priorities and educational settings; (3) whole-system approaches focusing on the design and implementation of whole-institution sustainability plans; and (4) HEI sustainability culture and operations. The paper’s final contribution is the presentation of best practices and emerging trends in the literature. These practices were selected on the following qualitative methodological criteria based on the systems-thinking approach to whole-institution assessment: (1) the effectiveness of self-assessment models, tools, and guidelines in each respective research area; (2) the degree of integration of systems thinking and/or modeling; and (3) the incorporation of qualitative indicators for stakeholder engagement.

The process of transition in the Balkan economies was accompanied by large-scale emigration. The employment of a considerable part of their labour force abroad was accompanied by a massive inflow of remittances. Remittances are considered the basic gain of migration for the emigration countries and their main compensation for losing (temporarily or more permanently) a part of their labour force. Whether remittances contribute to the economic development of the country receiving them depends on how they are used, that is, what activities they finance. Their exclusive use for consumption and imports, for example, is considered less development-stimulating than financing productive investment. This article investigates the impact of remittances on three basic macroeconomic variables, namely consumption, investment and imports, for three transition Balkan economies: Romania, Bulgaria and Albania. The main new element of the analysis is the use of econometric investigation on the basis of time series analysis, since emigration from these countries only started less than 20 years ago.

Policy initiatives by the United Nations and EU institutions have emphasized the need for higher education institutions (HEIs) to fulfill a significant role in the green transition, and that they tend to fall short of the achievement of this objective. Multiple studies indicate that HEIs assign high importance to the integration of environmental sustainability on a strategic level but generally lack dedicated policies of integration in operational aspects. This paper analyzes the state of the art on research on HEI sustainability and maps institutional sustainability self-assessment models, tools, and guidelines. The mapping was conducted in four prominent research areas: 1) sustainability integration in educational activities, pedagogical perspectives, and systemic transformations; 2) benchmarking sustainability of organizational transformation and operational op-timization, and links between developmental priorities and educational settings; 3) whole-system approaches focusing on the design and implementation of whole-institution sustainability plans; and, 4) HEI sustainability culture and operations. Best practices were selected on criteria of 1) the effectiveness of self-assessment models, tools, and guidelines in each respective research area; 2) the degree of integration of systems thinking and/or modelling; and 3) the incorporation of qualitative indicators for stakeholder engagement.

Since the migrant surge in 2015, social inclusion has become a crucial issue to be addressed effectively by the European Union, given that 39% of the population born outside of the EU member states faces the risk of poverty or social exclusion. Adding to that, the COVID-19 pandemic has severely affected migrant households worldwide, rendering migrant integration an urgent matter for national governments. Discrimination, racism, xenophobia, and radicalization are all societal threats emerging in periods of massive migrant flows and need appropriate policy measures to be employed in migrant host countries to tackle them. This paper suggests the integration of a multiple criteria decision analysis method, namely PROMETHEE, for policy making with regard to migrant social exclusion. In light of previous research findings and the recent release of the Migrant Integration Policy Index 2020, the authors argue that the method proposed could help policy makers to evaluate the effectiveness of the implemented policies, spot the discrepancies between policies and policy outcomes, and motivate knowledge sharing among the EU member states. The findings include a ten-year comparative list of the EU member states (2010–2019) driven by social inclusion indicators for the foreign-born (non-EU-born) population. The results are rather sensitive to changes in the data utilized but they provide an overall comparative picture of social inclusion policy effectiveness in the EU during the past decade.

This paper explores the impact of dispersal policy of asylum seekers in Greece under the accommodation scheme running in the country. Combining an analysis of secondary data and the findings of field research through semi-structured interviews with stakeholders in migration governance, the authors seek to identify whether there are differences in the integration prospects between the residents of the camps, which are mostly outside cities or in rural areas, and the beneficiaries of urban autonomous living. The contribution of this paper lies in that it brings into the spotlight the spatial criterion for the evaluation of integration both under the lens of rural–urban placement as well as under the lens of collective-autonomous living. To this end, it follows the integration policies and practices implemented at national and local levels and compares the access granted to people in need of international protection and their outcomes. The findings are in accordance with the literature supporting that the positive impact of urban autonomous living in socioeconomic integration usually prevails the residence in rural collective housing. However, it points out the importance of local actors in the success of integration efforts.

In this paper, we draw on the concepts of in-betweenness and migration interdependence in order to investigate the vulnerability of Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine due to their confl icting relations with Russia and the exposure of their economies to remittance flows from the latter. To achieve this goal, we explore whether and how migrant flows and remittance flows have diverged since 2014, when the three states signed their Association Agreements with the EU and their economic relations with Russia deteriorated. In this respect, we examine how interstate relations impact upon migration and remittances flows. After discussing in-betweenness and migration interdependence, we investigate the origin of the remittance inflows in Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine and the destination of the migration outfl ows. We map the development of remittances from the World, Europe, and Russia and relate it with the development of their GDP using longitudinal data. A comparative analysis of our findings suggest that the three cases differ from each other, but, in all three cases, Russia has not used migration interdependence as leverage. We conclude that remittance flows in the three in-between states are more affected by the state of the global economy, the economic situation of Russia, and domestic circumstances rather than from interstate relations.