The UK should develop a ‘global’ sponsorship programme to give all sponsored refugees the same rights and entitlements, including pathways to permanent settlement - benefiting communities, local authorities, volunteers and refugees, according to new research.
Published today (29 Sep), Shaping the future of community sponsorship in the UK and beyond: expanding pathways for refugee resettlement, sets out findings from a University of Birmingham research project examining lessons learned from existing refugee sponsorship schemes in the UK.
The researchers call for a global sponsorship programme that also includes expedited application processes, which can be used in response to an emergency.
Immigration and specifically asylum seeking is a key challenge facing the UK government, with increasing discontent from both sides of the political spectrum on how Prime Minister Kier Starmer and the Labour Party are supporting and accommodating asylum seekers.
One area the government has identified as a route to providing safe and legal routes for refugees to come to the UK is refugee sponsorship. In the government's flagship immigration white paper, published in May this year, sponsorship schemes were identified as a key priority for immigration policy in the UK.
The UK currently has three main refugee sponsorship schemes, the Community Sponsorship (CS) scheme, which was launched in 2016; Homes for Ukraine (H4U), introduced in 2022; and the Communities for Afghans (C4A) scheme in 2024. The different programmes range in scale, with only 1,000 refugees sponsored through CS in ten years, C4A remaining small, and then H4U seeing over 100,000 people sponsored.
Jenny Phillimore, Professor of Migration and Superdiversity, who led the project, said: “We found that despite the variation in scale of these schemes, sponsorship in the UK is widely regarded as a successful model that benefits not the refugees, but hosts, volunteers and wider communities. The diversity of approaches across CS, H4U, and C4A offers valuable lessons, but also reveals disparities.”
Researchers found that all schemes demonstrated a strong capacity to deliver personalised, wraparound support that improved refugees’ access to housing, healthcare, education, and employment. Sponsorship also fostered social cohesion, mutual learning, and cost-effective integration in both already engaged and previously disengaged areas. Interviews with the general public revealed that many knew nothing about sponsorship, but wanted to know more and generally thought sponsorship sounded like a good idea. However, the sponsorship is not without challenges.
Professor Phillimore said: “Our research found that the application processes for sponsorship schemes are complex and time-consuming. Housing shortages, insufficient volunteer expertise in navigating welfare, education, and employment, misaligned expectations, financial inequities, and inconsistent local authority capacity also presented challenges across schemes.
“We also identified that language learning and healthcare access were barriers to integration. The fragmented, nationality-specific approach to refugee resettlement schemes generated confusion and perceptions of inequity.”
The researchers also advocate for:
- Strong Government leadership with a national strategy, clear guidance, and sustained funding for local authorities and lead sponsors.
- Streamlined applications, targeted recruitment to diversify sponsors, and lighter re-application processes for experienced groups.
- Expanded language provision, employment pathways, and mental health support.
- Mechanisms for continuous monitoring, evaluation, and sharing of best practice.
Professor Phillimore concluded: “The sustainability of sponsorship depends on enhanced support for volunteers, equal rights and entitlements for all refugees, clear role definitions for local authorities, and strong central coordination. Public engagement also remains an untapped resource for scaling participation.
“If the government is serious about better utilising the sponsorship model to help overcome some of the current challenges with refugee policies, it should seriously consider a standardised and broadened scheme. The UK has shown through existing schemes that sponsorship works well for everyone involved, even in the face of various obstacles. There is no reason that it cannot be even better with the right plan and support in place.”
ENDS