Ilse van Liempt

Dr. Ilse van Liempt is an Associate Professor in Human Geography and Spatial Planning at Utrecht University's Faculty of Geosciences. She leads the university-wide Focus Area on Migration and Societal Change and serves as co-editor-in-chief of Tijdschrift Voor Economische en Sociale Geografie. Her research focuses on migration politics, urban integration, and the spatial dimensions of exclusion/inclusion in Europe, with particular attention to refugees, public space dynamics, and irregular migration.

Van Liempt holds a PhD from the University of Amsterdam (2007), published as Navigating Borders. She has held roles at IMES Amsterdam and Sussex University. Current projects include I-CLAIM (EU Horizon Europe) on irregular migrant labor conditions, RAISE (EU Horizon) addressing structural racism, and ReRoot (H2020) analyzing arrival infrastructures for newcomers.

Her work bridges academic research with policy impact, involving collaborations with NGOs, labor unions, and municipal actors. Key themes include refugee youth's spatial agency, migrant smuggling networks, and the geographies of urban care work. She supervises multiple PhD and postdoc researchers exploring these topics across Europe.