Academic biography

Dr Beatrice Scutaru is a historian of modern and contemporary Europe. Beatrice specialises in transnational history, with a focus on migration, childhood, and the Cold War. She is particularly interested in the movement of people, ideas and ideologies across national borders, on how these take place and the experiences of the people involved (e.g., migrants, refugees, students, academic exchanges, tourists).

Beatrice has co-authored, with a leading team of researchers, the first synthetic overview of the history of child institutionalisation in France since 1945, which will be published with the leading French publisher Presses Universitaires de Rennes (2023). She is also the leading editor of a book on the history of child migrations on the European continent since the beginning of the 20th century (Routledge, 2020).

Beatrice’s most recent research project explores the humanitarian aid provided to refugee children during the Cold War, with a particular focus on the Romanian case. She aims to understand the policies adopted at the national level, as well as their application, locally. She is also interested in the refugee children’s everyday experiences in state-led institutions and society in general, as well as responses and attitudes of ‘host communities’ towards these refugees. More generally, this project will contribute to a broader analysis of national and international humanitarian efforts on behalf of refugees in Central and Eastern European states.

Beatrice obtained a PhD in Contemporary History at the University of Angers, France (2013). Before joining Dublin City University, she was a Marie Curie Fellow at the University of Padua (Italy) and an Assistant Professor at Trinity College Dublin and Maynooth University.

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3760-0937