Michael Orlando Sharpe is the new Malmö City Guest Professor in Migration Studies at Malmö University. He is a tenured full Professor of Political Science at York College of the City University of New York and Professor of Political Science and Professor of International  Migration Studies at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY).

Over the last decade, part of his research agenda has been an ongoing project om remigration otherwise known as state sponsored paid voluntary return- “pay to go schemes” for immigrants and their families to be paid to return to their country.

An ongoing project is entitled “Paid to Leave: Selecting by Ethnicity and Unemployment in the Liberal Democratic States of the Netherlands, Japan, and Spain”. In his research on the Netherlands, Japan, and Spain, he has found that the three countries select(ed) for  remigration on the basis of unemployment and ethnicity/nationality and limit reentry via loss of legal status.

Michael Orlando Sharpe wants to expand his remigration research to Sweden and Scandinavia. The project is entitled “Who is in and who is out?: Paid to Leave on Conditionalities in the Liberal Democratic State: The Netherlands, Japan, Spain, Sweden, Denmark, and Norway”.

In his application for a for a Visiting Professorship, Michael Orlando Sharpe writes that it would provide an opportunity to share his own research with the Malmö academic community and to “have a base in Sweden from which to conduct  additional interviews and analyze data in a rich intellectual environment to write, interact,  exchange ideas, and receive feedback in seminars, etc.”

Michael Orlando Sharpe will be the Malmö City Guest Professor in Migration Studies at MIM, Malmö University, from September 1-November 30, 2026.

Malmö City Guest Professor in Migration Studies

The Guest Professorship within the field of International Migration and Ethnic Relations (IMER) is a donation to Malmö University financed by the City of Malmö when the University was inaugurated. The former name was Guest Professorship in Memory of Willy Brandt.

Malmö University and MIM have, since 2000, hosted 34 prominent researchers as part of the guest professorship and it has generated a constant and dynamic exchange of knowledge, enhancing MIM’s academic strength while also reinforcing our international network. Read more about the guest professorship and previous guest professors below.

Text: Communications Department