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Research

IMI links a wide body of research projects conducted at IMI Oxford and IMI Amsterdam and those that have developed from collaborations between former IMI colleagues. Both current and past research projects are presented here.

Our research

Current Projects
Past Projects

Understanding the role of welfare systems in destination and origin countries for migration patterns within and towards Europe

European welfare systems in times of mobility

This project develops new theoretical and empirical approaches to gain a fundamental understanding of the relation between development processes and human migration. While prior analyses focused on a limited number of economic and demographic ‘predictor’ variables, this project applies a broader concept of development to examine how internal and international migration trends and patterns are shaped by wider social, economic, technological and political transformations.

Migration as Development (MADE)

The research project aims to explore Turkish migrant workers’ participation and representation at trade unions and works councils in the UK, Germany, and the Netherlands, which operate under the same EU legislation but have different citizenship regimes, migration policies and labour market systems

Participation of Turkish migrants in the public sphere via trade unions in selected European states

In support of the EU Trust Fund, which was set up in November 2015 to address challenges of instability and migration, a Research and Evidence Facility (REF) has been created to collate and produce evidence and policy relevant knowledge

Research and Evidence Facility

Improving the understanding of migration patterns within, to and from Africa over time. IMI is working with African researchers and universities across the continent to support research and build research capacity.

African Migrations Programme

Despite an unprecedented growth in international migration research, little has focused on migration from the perspective of developing countries. Understanding of migration patterns across large parts of Africa is particularly limited.

African Perspectives on Human Mobility

Documenting global mobility and furthering our knowledge of international migration.

Database on immigrants in OECD and non-OECD countries

Generating new theoretical and empirical insights into the way states and policies shape migration processes in their interaction with other migration determinants.

Determinants of International Migration

A transnational analysis that addresses both transnational organisations and the border-crossing contexts in which they exist to create a new approach which focuses both on the role of the countries of origin and destination in migrants' integration and participation.

Diffusion and Contexts of Transnational Migrant Organisations in Europe

Understanding the drivers and dynamics of high‐skilled migration, and the effect of policy on this type of migration.

Drivers and dynamics of high-skilled migration

Refining and disseminating research on the role of emigration states in global migration governance.

Emigration States in the Global Governance of Migration

A collaborative European research project aimed at investigating the impact of perceptions of human rights and democracy on migration aspirations and decisions.

EUMAGINE: Imagining Europe from the Outside

Investigating the relationship between family and migration in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso’s capital city

Family strategies of migrants in West Africa

Helping understand and prepare for future changes in international migration.

Global Migration Futures

Furthering our knowledge of the impact of immigration policies on the international migration of medical doctors.

International migration of medical doctors: Trends, drivers and policies

The aim of this research project is to study the nature and practical results of European intervention in migration issues in the central Sahara and its global cost, by combining an analysis of European policies with empirical fieldwork, with a view towards understanding and correcting the representations and assumptions that underpin them.

International mobility, local economics and European cooperation policies in the central Sahara

IMI will work in partnership with ICMPD and researchers in the regions on 4 case studies: Libya, Central African Republic, Côte d’Ivoire and South Africa.

Migrants in countries in crisis: Supporting an evidence-based approach for effective and cooperative state action

Capturing everyday mobility drivers to better understand the complexity of human mobility dynamics in the Great Lakes region.

Mobility in the African Great Lakes

Exploring migrants' networks and experiences

Oxford Diasporas Programme

A fresh look at how patterns of migration to Europe develop, focusing on the conditions that encourage initial moves by pioneer migrants to become established migration systems (or not). Seeking to bridge the theories on the initiation and continuation of migration, and to integrate the concept of agency in a systems theory approach.

Theorizing the Evolution of European Migration Systems

Stimulating a transatlantic, South-North, and South-South debate on migration and development among policy makers, academics and civil society.

Transatlantic Dialogues on Migration and Development Issues

Contributing to understanding transnational migration, particularly by looking at the conditions for and effects of transnational migration, possibilities for the mobility of migrants’ rights to be enhanced, and the links between migration, citizenship, and migration and development.

Transnational migration, citizenship and the circulation of rights and responsibilities