Aigul Alieva is a tenured Research Associate in the department Living Conditions of LISER. She holds MSc in Politics from Edinburgh University (UK), MA in Social Policy Analysis from Leuven University (Belgium) and PhD in Social Sciences from Bremen University (Germany). Prior joining the Living Conditions department, she held an Assistant Professor position at Leuven University (Belgium) in Masters Programme in Social Policy Analysis, jointly with LISER and partner institutes. She has been a visiting researcher at the University of Amsterdam (Netherlands), the European University Institute (Italy), and York University (Canada).

Her main research interests are immigration and integration policy, social and educational inequalities, comparative education systems and skills formation, policy evaluation. She has contributed to a number of research and policy projects, both at the EU and the national level. As a principal investigator, she led “The Persistence of Social and Ethnic Disadvantages in Primary and Secondary Schools” project funded by the Luxembourg National Research Fund, “Structural and Social Integration of the Third-country Nationals and Other Immigrants in Luxembourg” co-funded by the European Integration Fund and Ministry of Family Affairs, Integration and the Greater Region. 

She is a member in several expert networks supported by the European Commission: The European Expert Network on Economics of Education (EENEE), European Platform for Investing in Children (EPIC), Network of Experts on the Social Dimension of Education and Training (NESET). 

At present, she is a team and a WP leader in EU Horizon 2020 project “Pioneering Policies and Practices Tackling Educational Inequalities in Europe” (2021-2023); Luxembourg country expert in the “European Graduate Tracking Initiative” project (2020-2022). She is also a management committee and leadership team member in COST Action project “International Ethnic and Immigrant Minorities' Survey Data Network” (2017-2021).