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

Her main research interests include immigration and integration policy, social and educational inequalities, comparative education systems and skills formation, and policy evaluation. She is a member of Network of Experts on the Social Dimension of Education and Training (NESET) and the European Expert Network on Economics of Education (EENEE), supported by the EC. In the past she has contributed to the work of the European Migration Network – National Contact Point in Luxembourg, and the European Platform for Investing in Children (EPIC).

Aigul Alieva has contributed to numerous research and policy projects, both at the EU and the national level. As a principal investigator, she led projects such as “The Persistence of Social and Ethnic Disadvantages in Primary and Secondary Schools” funded by the Luxembourg National Research Fund and “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. In recent years, she served on the Management Committee and Leadership Team of the COST Action project “International Ethnic and Immigrant Minorities' Survey Data Network”. Most recently, she co-created the EU Horizon 2020 project “Pioneering Policies and Practices Tackling Educational Inequalities in Europe” (PIONEERED), where she also served as a Team and a Work Package leader. Currently, she is an Advisory Board member of the Horizon Europe project “Strategies for Achieving Equity and Inclusion in Education, Training and Learning in Democratic Europe” (STRIDE).

At the national level she is working on the project “Evolution of Social Segregation in Education – Investigating Socio-Economic and Socio-Cultural Disparities in Luxembourg School System”, supported by the Observatoire national de l’enfance, de la jeunesse et de la qualité scolaire (OEJQS).