Ludek Stavinoha

Ludek Stavinoha is an Associate Professor in Media and Global Development at the University of East Anglia (UEA), part of the School of Global Development. He co-directs the BA Global Development with Media program and teaches courses on humanitarian communication, media democracy, and migration governance. His research focuses on humanitarian communication, political sociology, and critical border studies, with particular attention to EU migration policies, grassroots migrant solidarity, and transparency in institutional decision-making.

Stavinoha holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of Strathclyde (2014), and MA and BA degrees in European Studies (cum laude) from Maastricht University (2006–2007). He previously taught at the University of Bath and Maastricht University. His work bridges academia with public interest journalism through collaborations with Lighthouse Reports, contributing to investigative pieces for Der Spiegel, The Guardian, and Balkan Insight.

His research explores how migrants resist confinement through everyday acts of solidarity and how EU border regimes perpetuate violence. A second strand examines the use of Freedom of Information requests to expose harmful migration policies. Recent projects include an Independent Social Research Foundation fellowship on EU border bureaucracy and an AHRC-funded study on improving aid allocation through media engagement.

Stavinoha has been recognized with the 2024 European Press Prize and Daphne Caruana Galizia Prize Finalist award for collaborative journalism exposing migrant abuses. He currently supervises PhD projects on capitalism discourses in Chile, Chinese literary journalism, and UK asylum management systems.