Lina Venturas is a Professor at the Department of Political Science and History of Panteion University in Athens. She studied history and sociology in Greece, France and Belgium. Her research focuses on migrations, diaspora, sending states’ policies, refugees and international organizations. She was a member of a European Commission-funded research team studying the social impact of emigration and rural-urban migration in Central and Eastern Europe. She led a three-year project on the history of the establishment of the International Organization for Migration, and a project on the reception of refugees in Greece (1821–1989), funded by the Hellenic Parliament Foundation.