Konrad Miciukiewicz

The Role of Muti-Level Networks in the Context of Mass Displacement: Reception of Ukrainian Refugees in Lublin, Poland This project mobilizes a multi-level governance (MLG) framework to investigate the role that local and national NGOs, international development organisations, local authorities and ad hoc grassroots initiatives played in integration of Ukrainian refugees in Lublin in the first months after the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. While the Polish Government opened its borders, offered Ukrainians unconditional protected stay for at least 18 months, and granted access to health care, schooling, public services and benefits, the capacity of the state to meet basic needs of millions of refugees has been limited. NGOs, ad hoc initiatives and individual citizens filled this vacuum raising money, arranging food, transport, as well as emergency and immediate housing for Ukrainians. This project mobilises a case study of collaborative humanitarian effort in Lublin to examine how municipality worked with local civil society, international development organisations, and the central state to build capacity to deliver basic services to tens of thousands of refugees. In doing so it explores how the refugee reception in Lublin was shaped through a set of complex historic past dependencies, as well as how it created capabilities for future local action.