EMN Czech Republic National Conference

Pavla Novotná

Pavla Novotná serves as the Director of the Department of Asylum and Migration Policy at the Ministry of the Interior of the Czech Republic. Before taking on her current role in 2017, she held several positions at the Ministry, starting in the Department of International Relations and Country of Origin Information. She later served as Head of the Immigration Legislation and Administrative Procedures Unit, the Concepts and Analysis Unit, and as Acting Director of the Department of International Cooperation and EU Affairs.

Pavel Vařeka

Vít Novotný

Vít Novotný is an expert for migration, asylum, border control, migrant integration, and religion at the Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies. His previous activities at the Centre included the creation of centre-right policy narratives through edited volumes, in cooperation with the Centre’s member foundations.

His previous experience was in the education, private, public and non-profit sectors in the UK (2004-10). In 1991-93 and 2001-03 he worked as a pharmacist and sales representative in the pharmaceutical industry in Czechia. His education includes undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in clinical pharmacy, European studies, public administration and politics from universities in Czechia, the US and the UK.

In 1992, he ran for the Czech Parliament on the list of the Civic Democratic Alliance (ODA). In 1989 he was active, as a student, in the citizen movement that overthrew the Czechoslovak Communist regime. He has published widely on politics and current issues in Czech and English-language press. He speaks Czech, English, conversational Russian and is learning German and French.

Martin Hofmann

Martin Hofmann is a specialist on migration research and policy development with more than 20 years of professional experience. He is principal policy advisor to the Director General of ICMPD. Previously, he led the Centre´s programme on legal migration and integration. He has coordinated and worked in a broad number of EU and national funded projects in the area of migration, migration management and integration. His work has focused on comparative studies and publications in the areas of immigration, irregular migration, human smuggling, integration, asylum and migration policy development in the national and European context. Moreover, he worked as researcher for the ICMPD secretariats of the Budapest and Prague Process, consultative fora of more than 50 Governments, aiming at developing comprehensive and sustainable migration management systems in the wider European context.

Martin Hofmann holds a university degree in Political Science with a focus on European Integration, the Political System of the European Union and the Austrian Political System at the University of Vienna. He is member of the Expert Council for Integration to The Austrian Federal Chancellery. He has been member of the Network of Excellence International Migration, Integration and Social Cohesion (IMISCOE); has been lecturer at the Danube University Krems; and at Vienna University.

Meghan Benton

Minna Säävälä

Minna Säävälä is a Chief Specialist in the Labour Migration and integration Unit at the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment in Finland. Her fields of expertise are migrant children, young people and families and generally knowledge-based policy-making. Before her current duties at the Ministry, she worked as executive in an NGO, and further down the timeline, as academic researcher in social sciences. Minna received her PhD in the University of Amsterdam.

Marianne Höhl

Marianne Höhl serves as Head of the Department for Integration Coordination, which is responsible for coordinating the cross-cutting issue of integration in close cooperation with federal ministries, regional authorities, and partner organizations. One aspect is the implementation of national integration strategies with a particular focus on those entitled to asylum and subsidiary protection. Furthermore, integration monitoring and knowledge management also falls within her area of responsibility.

She studied law and international development at the University of Vienna. Subsequently, she gained experience in the federal administration with a focus on integration, as well as in asylum law at the Austrian Supreme Administrative Court and in citizenship matters at the Vienna city administration.

Anna Lukešová

Anna Lukešová, a graduate of International Territorial Studies and West European Studies at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University, dedicated her doctoral research at the Institute of International Studies to analyzing the development and implementation of integration policies in the Czech Republic. In her dissertation, she focuses primarily on how these policies are governed and how their administration has evolved with the introduction of the so-called concept of civic integration. Through a detailed study of multi-level governance, which concentrates on the cooperation of diverse actors across different levels of public administration, she connects her interdisciplinary expertise in European and migration studies.

Yuliia Yerokhina

Andrea Krchová

Jiří Vesecký

Petr Syrový

Petr Syrový works professionally in the field of social prevention, social services planning, and local integration of migrants. For the past 19 years, he has been the Head of the Department for Prevention and Development of Social Services at the Social Care Department of the Prague 13 Municipal District Office. Since 2010, together with colleagues and partners, he has been implementing the project Shared Address – Prague 13, focused on social cohesion and the integration of migrants. The project has been funded from the very beginning by the state budget of the Ministry of the Interior of the Czech Republic. He is also involved in the Integration Policy for Foreigners of the City of Prague.

Alena Krejčí

Alena Krejčí is the Director of the Centre for Foreigners of the South Moravian Region, which was established in 2009 – initially as part of the South Moravian Regional Authority and, since mid-2022, operating as an independent organization. She has been active in the field of migrant integration for more than 15 years, bringing experience from both the private and non-profit sectors. A lifelong enthusiast and project manager at heart, she actively seeks new opportunities. Currently, her focus is on strengthening cooperation and networking with partners at both local and national levels, supporting the qualification potential of foreigners, and seeking innovations in the services offered by the organization. Her aspiration is for everyone to feel at home in the South Moravian Region – regardless of whether they were born there or moved there.

Jan Kepka

Jan Kepka has been working in the state administration level in the field of integration of immigrants since 2004. He is Head of Unit for Integration and Information at the Ministry of the Interior of the Czech Republic. His responsibilities mainly include policy making, system of compulsory Adaptation-Integration Courses, cooperation with 18 Integration Centers, subsidies to municipalities and NGOs, lecturing and participation in international projects. He is nominated as contact person for European Integration Network and voluntary participated as Czech national expert in European Asylum Support Office mission in hotspot in Greece.