Barbara Roche joins SoFI as Visiting Fellow

'I am very pleased and excited to have been awarded the title of Visiting Fellow in the Social Futures Institute. The work of the Institute is extremely impressive. The range of its activities and expertise - asylum seekers and refugees, social and community cohesion, homes and homelessness, neighbourhood and urban renewal, social exclusion, Black and minority Ethnic communities - fits in well with my own background in government.

As a former Home Office Minister I introduced the concept of managed migration (arguing for more legal migration to meet the needs of the economy) and was responsible for the refugee integration policy. At the Cabinet Office, and the then Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, I was the Minister for social exclusion. During this period I sponsored the Strategy Unit's wide ranging report on Black and Minority Ethnic Communities and the Labour Market.

I am a barrister by background (working for a number of years in a law centre) as well as having been the Women's Minister, so I find the University's work on gender violence and gender justice of great interest.

I am looking forward to speaking in October in the Urban Futures Seminar Series. The title of my talk is 'the politician as practitioner' and I will draw on my experience as the Minister responsible for the Neighbourhood Renewal Unit and the Homelessness brief.

I am currently a board member of a large housing association and have worked with the National Federation of Housing Associations in the North East. I have also worked with the TUC in Newcastle on the establishment of the future Single Equality Commission.'

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