Migration
Migration Policy Centre
The Migration Policy Centre (MPC) at the European University Institute (EUI) responds to the strategic need for a research centre on migration that can mobilise the best expertise available in Europe, in migrants’ countries of origins, and, indeed, from the worldwide scientific community.
It sets out to bridge the gap between research and policy-making by:
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Producing policy-oriented research
The MPC conducts theoretical and empirical research and sustains the production and use of databases. It develops specific tools adapted to the objective of making research serve action and produces methodologies that address migration governance needs, from implementing and monitoring migration policies to assessing their impact on the economy and society of source and host countries. It facilitates cooperation between researchers and policy-makers.
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Pooling scholars, experts and thinkers
The MPC identifies problems, studies their causes and consequences, and devises policy solutions. It gathers a large pool of expertise and creativity for thinking on migration issues.
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Offering a venue for discussion
The MPC brings together different stakeholders for open and frank debates. It provides a forum for comparing and discussing ideas among participants with diverging interests, while maintaining its independence and high scientific standards.
CARIM was created at the European University Institute in 2004 and is co-financed by the European Commission, DG AidCo, under the Thematic programme for cooperation with third countries in the areas of migration and asylum. Since 2009, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) are partners and the Center for Migration and Refugee Studies at the American University in Cairo is also an associate.
CARIM aims to observe, analyse, and forecast migration in 17 countries of the Southern & Eastern Mediterranean (SEM) and Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA): Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Palestine, Senegal, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, and Turkey. All are studied as origin, transit and destination countries.
CARIM network of experts: CARIM is composed of a coordinating unit established at the European University Institute (Florence, Italy), and a network of around 70 scientific correspondents based in the countries under observation, as well as external experts from the European Union and the rest of the world.
CARIM database covers three major dimensions of migration: demographic and economic; legal; and socio-political.
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The demographic and economic module contains a wide range of statistics on migration (a list of 75 tables for each country) that are provided by national institutions. With a view to facilitating international comparison and aggregation, the names and formats of tables and variables have been standardised as far as possible, while, at the same time, the specificity of each national set of data is respected.
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The legal module contains the legal provisions directly or indirectly linked to international migration, its causes and consequences as well as notes and papers from our national experts.
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The socio-political module contains documents from governmental and non-governmental institutions which play a role in defining migration-related policies.
CARIM publications (ca. 250 titles) :
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Mediterranean Report on Migration: a comprehensive overview of the major developments concerning migration into, through, and from each of the SEM countries.
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Research Reports and Analytical and Synthetic Notes: papers based on original research related to the CARIM Research Programmes.
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Migration Profiles: an overview of demographic, economic, legal and socio-political aspects shaping migration in the country.
CARIM research programmes: CARIM conducts comparative and multidisciplinary research on issues that are crucial for countries and peoples in the regions under study. Research is applied and policy-oriented, with a view to identifying and analysing emerging questions, and providing support for the definition of public policies and subsequent monitoring. The following research programmes have been completed:
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Border Management
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Circular Migration
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Irregular Migration
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Transit Migration
The following research programmes are ongoing
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Highly-skilled migration
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Gender and migration
CARIM conferences: each research programme comprises one expert meeting and one or two policy-makers meetings; an annual summer school − the Florence School on Mediterranean Migration and Development − is also organised in the framework of CARIM.
Tolerance, Pluralism and Social Cohesion: Responding to the Challenges of the 21st Century in Europe - ACCEPT PLURALISM is a new project, funded by the European Commission under the Seventh Framework Programme.
The project aims to investigate whether European societies have become more or less tolerant during the past 20 years. Bringing together empirical and theoretical findings, ACCEPT PLURALISM generates a State of the Art Report on Tolerance and Cultural Diversity in Europe targeting policy makers, NGOs and practitioners, a Handbook on Ideas of Tolerance and Cultural Diversity in Europe aimed to be used at upper high school level and with local/national policy makers, a Tolerance Indicators’ Toolkit where qualitative and quantitative indicators may be used to score each country’s performance on tolerating cultural diversity, and a book on Tolerance, Pluralism and Cultural Diversity in Europe, mainly aimed to an academic readership.
The project includes direct communication with and input from policy makers, civil society, political and media actors for the dissemination and exploitation of its findings. The consortium is formed by 17 partner institutions and is coordinated at the RSCAS.
METOIKOS, a project co-funded by the European Commission DG-JLS, studies the links between circular migration and the integration (in the country of destination) and the reintegration (in the source country) of circular migrants and their families in three European regions (south-eastern Europe/Balkans; south-western Europe/Maghreb; central-eastern Europe).
The project will identify the main challenges and opportunities involved in circular migration for source countries, destination countries and migrants (and their families) as regards social, economic and political integration in the destination country. It will also look at problems and opportunities for the reintegration of circular migrants in their countries of origin.
The project will develop a Guide for local, regional and national policy makers to help in framing circular migration with appropriate (re-)integration policies. Three Regional Workshops (on Spain, Italy and Morocco; on Greece, Italy and Albania; and on Poland, Hungary and Ukraine) will be organized. The project will foster online discussion on circular migration with a view to raising awareness about the challenges and advantages of circular mobility in the wider EU Neighbourhood and the Euro-Mediterranean region more generally.
Improving EU and US Immigration Systems’ Capacity for Responding to Global Challenges: Learning from experiences
This project is co-funded by the European Commission DG Relex in the framework of the Pilot Projects on “Transatlantic Methods for Handling Global Challenges in the European Union and United States”. The Migration Policy Institute (MPI-Washington) is partner.
The project identifies the ways in which EU and US immigration systems can be substantially improved in order to address the major challenges that policymakers face on both sides of the Atlantic, both in the context of the current economic crisis, and over the longer term. The emphasis will be on identifying policies and practices that can improve transatlantic mobility and enhance cooperation between the EU and the US while, at the same time, improving cooperation with immigrant sending and transit countries.
Scientific Working Group on India-EU Mobility Cooperation
Given the potential for strengthening India-EU cooperation concerning the mobility of people, and with a view to fostering research on migration and development for the benefit of all stakeholders, a network of academics and academic institutions from India and the EU has been established to study and report on the various dimensions of mobility. This network will facilitate the formulation of appropriate policy responses.
The Indian Council for Overseas Employment (ICOE, New Delhi, India) is a partner here.
Since 2005, this yearly event — organised with the University of Florence, Faculty of Political Sciences 'Cesare Alfieri' — offers post-graduate studies and professional training in migration studies, focusing particularly on Europe and the countries to the South and East of the Mediterranean. Since 2008, the School has been organized as part of the CARIM project and has been co-financed by the Europe Aid Co-operation office of the European Commission.
The group provides an informal and congenial atmosphere for interdisciplinary debate, through the presentation of on-going research. This facilitates the cross-fertilisation of work in progress at the EUI, and strengthens the position of social science expertise on migration in current policy debates.
Mediterranean 2030
A projection for migration flows in the Mediterranean 2010-2030, in partnership with Institut de Prospective Economique du Monde Méditerranéen – IPEMED http://www.ipemed.coop/
The MIREM project is concerned with the challenges linked to return migration as well as its impact on development. Analyses and user-friendly tools have been provided to better understand the impact of return migration on the Maghreb countries. These were aimed at identifying the factors inherent in the returnees’ migratory experience, as well as those factors that are external to it and which shape their patterns of reintegration, as well as their opportunities to participate in the development of the Maghreb countries (i.e., Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia).
The main outcomes of the MIREM project include:
The MIREM field survey on returnees to the Maghrebcountries
This survey includes a large number of comparable datasets allowing the many factors shaping returnees’ patterns of reintegration in their country of origin (Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia) to be better understood.
The Database on return migrants to the Maghreb (DReMM).
The DReMM constitutes a rich source of information for the reintegration of around one thousand return migrants and about post-return conditions in their countries of origin.
Statistics on return migration to the Maghreb
Include a series of statistical data sets and graphs allowing return flows and stocks in the Maghreb countries to be evaluated.
The inventory of the bilateral agreements linked to readmission
A unique database of all the bilateral agreements linked to readmission (i.e., standard agreements, police cooperation agreements, memoranda of understanding, administrative arrangements and exchanges of letters) that have been concluded and negotiated between the Maghreb countries and the EU Member States since the 1950s.
Three policy meetings aimed at securing the practical exploitation of the analytical data produced by the project team.
This project financed by the European Commission DG-ECFIN and completed in fall 2009 pursued the following goals:
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The analysis of the key labour market determinants of migration flows from selected Arab Mediterranean Countries (AMCs – Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Syria, Tunisia and the Occupied Palestinian Territories), with a particular emphasis on demographic pressures, wage differentials and relative income disparities with the EU, employment policies, labour market flexibility and unemployment rates; this analysis includes the impact of migration on AMC labour markets; A series of specific recommendations to improve the design of the EU’s migration policies towards AMCs and policy options available to them for the management of mismatches between labour supply and demand.
The project has delivered a regional report and 10 background papers that were presented in an international conference hosted by Cairo University.