Members of the MIGREC team, Natalija Perisic, Dejan Pavlovic, Danica Santic and Danijela Pavlovic visited the ICMPD from March 24 to 27, 2023, in order to facilitate the exchange of knowledge at a regional level and to promote the MIGREC project by exploring possibilities for future synergies and cooperation. From the side of the International Center for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD), the meeting was attended by Alexander Maleev, Project Manager, Veronika Bliger, Head of Research and Irina Lysak, Project Officer. The ICMPD is active in over 90 countries around the world and it takes a regional approach in its work to create efficient cooperation and partnerships along migration routes. Priority regions include Africa, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, Mediterranean, Silk Routes, Western Balkans and Turkey. Its three-pillar approach to migration management – structurally linking research, migration dialogues and capacity building – contributes to better migration policy development worldwide.
Regional migration events in the Western Balkans, engagement of the Diaspora, the Prague Process, and the three-pronged approach that strives for comprehensive, sustainable and future-oriented migration governance were discussed at the meeting. To this end, cooperation with ICMPD is very important for the MIGREC because it will enable the analysis of current and potential migration flows to European receiving countries, monitoring and examination of the situation in the main countries of origin of migrants and development of measures for better recognition and control of migration movements. The ICMPD invited the MIGREC to network with them and to participate in its research activities.
On the same occasion, the MIGREC team members visited the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM), whose Director, Mr. Ivan Vejvoda, is the MIGREC’s Advisory Board Member. Essential to the IWM’s mission is reaching out to a variety of interested publics, including opinion influencers and policymakers. IWM organises public lectures, debates and conferences, publish books, articles and digital exchanges. Along with Mr. Vejvoda, from the side of IWM, the meeting was attended by Ayse Caglar, Permanent Fellow and Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Viena and Katerina Koci, the Research Director.
It was pointed out that the sustainability of the MIGREC requires finding new partners and new projects. Also, it was pointed out that MIGREC should bring together scientists, policy makers and practitioners from different disciplines and that it would be very useful to organise some kind of internship for PhD students or other researchers who can come into contact with MIGREC and in this sense achieve cooperation between different institutions. Regarding the MIGREC’s PhD studies in Migration Policy, a support was offered in terms of its potential improvement, if needed and harmonization with the programme structure and mobility of the National Research Competence Center for Migration and Mobility Studies.
