For 30 years – since 1987 – Forced Migration Review (FMR) has published articles by practitioners, policymakers and researchers. At the outset, the magazine – then called the Refugee Participation Network newsletter – was printed in black and white, with each issue containing fewer than a dozen articles. With no email or internet in those days, liaison with authors required lengthy sessions at the fax machine or multiple exchanges of letters in the post.
Our ways of working have changed, and we have redesigned the magazine a number of times, including a refresh of our cover design to mark our 30th anniversary, but FMR’s objective remains the same:
…to establish a link through which practitioners, researchers and policy makers can communicate and benefit from each other's practical experience and research results. Those working for host governments, voluntary agencies and international humanitarian agencies acquire invaluable experience but are often too busy to record it; those doing research publish in places and in a style which often make their findings inaccessible or irrelevant to practitioners. The RPN intends to bridge this gap... (RPN Newsletter No 1, November 1987 www.fmreview.org/RPN/01)
For 30 years we have shared expertise, insights, research and questions from the world of policy, practice and research, and have supported the information needs of the international community. We have sought to cover topical issues, issues of emerging importance and those which merit greater attention than they receive. And we have worked to include displaced people in all this, and to encourage accountability of the international community towards those directly affected by forced migration and statelessness.
There is as much need as ever for sharing expertise and for learning from what has been done in the past. Please encourage your colleagues and partners to sign up to receive FMR electronically or in print, or ask us to send print copies to organisations, governments, libraries or anywhere else that you think it could be of use. www.fmreview.org/request
Thanks to our generous donors, FMR is still free of charge – in English, Spanish, Arabic and French.
We would like to thank all those who have engaged with us over these three decades: readers, authors, donors, advisors and colleagues. We are grateful to those who have worked with us to translate, design, print and disseminate FMR. We pay tribute to Barbara Harrell-Bond who founded the RPN and to Belinda Allan who secured funding for it in the early years, and we acknowledge the continuing importance to us of our ‘home’ – the Refugee Studies Centre at the University of Oxford.
Write for FMR…
We are keen to maintain a balance of policy/practice and research in the pages of FMR, and want to encourage more practitioners and policymakers to consider what particular area of their knowledge and experience they might usefully share with FMR’s global readership. Email us at fmr@qeh.ox.ac.uk about your idea for an article and we will let you know if it is likely to be of interest, and will give you advice on content, style, etc. You don’t have to be an experienced writer – we are happy to work with you to develop your piece. For more ideas and guidance, please visit www.fmreview.org/writing-fmr