Alberto Ares, SJ: Regional Director at JRS Europe

Since September 2021, Alberto Ares Mateos has been director of JRS Europe in Brussels, the European office of the Jesuit Refugee Service, which coordinates work in more than twenty countries with over 8,000 professionals and volunteers. Each year these teams accompany more than 200,000 refugees and migrants, in work that combines political advocacy before European institutions with direct accompaniment on the ground.

A Jesuit and Doctor in International Migration and Development Cooperation from Comillas Pontifical University, he is recognized for his ability to unite academic research and social action. With more than two decades of experience, he has lived and worked alongside migrant and refugee communities across the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Asia: from the United States to El Salvador, Mexico, Morocco, Albania, and India.

His academic path began with a degree in Economics and Business from the University of Valladolid and continued with ecclesiastical studies at Comillas and a specialization in Social Ethics (Licentiate in Sacred Theology) at Boston College, where he also taught. He has been a lecturer at Comillas and a visiting professor at leading institutions such as Harvard University, Boston College, the University of Antwerp, and several Latin American universities, including the UCA in El Salvador and the Landívar in Guatemala. He currently teaches in master’s programs on migration and cooperation at Comillas and participates as a professor in humanitarian assistance programs at Boston College and other Latin American universities.

His professional trajectory includes key responsibilities in social and ecclesial organizations: he directed the Fundación Red Íncola in Valladolid, the Pueblos Unidos center in Madrid, and the University Institute for Migration Studies at Comillas; he served as delegate for the Jesuit Social Sector in Spain, deputy coordinator of the Jesuit Migrant Service, and director of the Migration Commission of the Spanish Bishops’ Conference. He has also collaborated with the Spanish Conference of Religious (CONFER), the Migrants with Rights network, and academic committees such as the Comillas Chair of Refugees and Forced Migrants or the Criminological Observatory on Immigration.

Academically, he has published more than forty books and chapters and over seventy scholarly articles on migration, integration, hospitality, and social theology. His research has established him as an international reference in studies on migratory movements, social cohesion, and models of integration.

Beyond publications and responsibilities, his thought is nourished by direct experience with displaced communities. He maintains that hospitality does not mean merely “doing for” migrants, but rather “walking with” them, learning reciprocity, creativity, and hope. His voice calls for hospitality to become a shared culture capable of humanizing wounded societies and opening paths for the future.