On Friday 27th of June our group was joined by researchers, scholars, and practicioners to discuss the state of the art in understanding the complexities in the study of migration.
On the institutional side, we had some excellent guests. Mag. Peter Webinger, Director of the Department of Migration of the Austrian Federal Ministry of the Interior shared about the current opportunities and challenges that Austria faces in the current international migratory flows. Ivona Zakovska-Todorovska and Saskia Heilemann of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) presented about the data collection and governance work of the IOM in Europe and Austria.
The academic contribution touched upon an incredibly vast array of topics. Guy Abel and Roman Hoffmann presented state of the art datasets of international migratory flows, also showing how environmental shocks like droughts or multiple vulnerabilities to environmental and conflict stress can influence internal migration flows.
Ljubica Nedelkoska presented a novel methodology to estimate countries’ openness to immigration based on de facto characteristics. Julia Mourao-Permoser presented an overview of the work of her research group, which focuses on the ethics of migration politics debates, the ethics of NGOs work in search and rescue, and sanctuaries for migrants. Mathias Czaika offered a reflection on lost occasions and opportunities to integrate complexity in modelling migration, from spatial dynamics to policy issues.
The PhD candidates of the Society Moving research group also presented the work in their PhD projects. Carsten explored new methods to estimate granular migration in- and out-flows in Austria. Ola showed a new approach to estimate the dynamics in legal status transitions for migrants in Austria, with a focus on the journeys through the Asylum system. Guillermo presented cutting edge work on estimating future demand for services in the context of demographic changes. Andrea presented a novel methodology to estimate bilateral remittances flows and the reaction in migrants’ behaviour to natural disasters that happen in their countries of origin.
The discussion was made extremely vibrant and fruitful from the participation of around 30 scholars and practicioners from the BMI, IOM, IIASA, CEU, Donau-Krems University, the University of Vienna, and the Wittgenstein Centre.
The day was concluded with a panel discussion between Peter Webinger, Ivona Zakovska-Todorovska, and Ljubica Nedelkoska, and moderated by Rafael Prieto-Curiel. The panel discussed the lessons learned from the last years of migration research and policy practices, also exploring how to better bridge the gap between the institutional and academic worlds.
