International Migration Institute (IMI)
The International Migration Institute (IMI) gathers social scientists from around the world committed to advancing a long-term view of migration processes as part of global change and development. This is achieved through promoting research, generating new data, IMI’s free-access working paper series and disseminating evidence-based insights on migration to the broadest possible audiences.
APPLY NOW: IMI Winter Academy 2026
Dialogues on Mobility, Surveillance, and Resistance
Calls to “secure borders” and “dismantle smuggling networks” operate as discourses that normalize a securitized logic under the rubric of “safe, orderly, and regular migration.” The goal of the IMI Winter Academy (organized by IMI and supported by the University of Amsterdam’s Decolonial Futures Research Priority Area) is to challenge the logics of migration criminalization and control, and to reimagine mobility and the futures of migration.
Recognizing borders as sites of both resistance and possibility, we invite scholars, practitioners, and community organizers working on critical approaches to mobility to join us in the US–Mexico border city of Tijuana, January 26–30, 2026.
Application deadline: September 25th, 2025
Read the call for applications for the complete details.
Submit your application using the online form.
What's new
CALL FOR APPLICATIONS: IMI Winter Academy 2026
5 September 2025
How Migration Really Works
5 September 2025
IMI Working Papers
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The Societal Determinants of Climate Risk: A Refugee Corridor Analysis of Hazard Exposure, Vulnerability and Coping Capacity
Working paper
Sonja Fransen and Kerilyn Schewel, (2025), IMI Working Paper Series, 189
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The Counter-Judicialization of Migration and Asylum Controls: Safe Third Country in Comparative Context
Working paper
Geoffrey Cameron and Kiran Banerjee, (2025), IMI Working Paper Series, 188
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Tracing the Early Origins of Africa’s Migration Transition: From Precolonial Times to the Present
Working paper
Michiel de Haas and Ewout Frankema, (2025), IMI Working Paper Series, 187
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Theorising Mobility Transitions and Social Transformation: Evidence from Five Case Studies
Working paper
Kerilyn Schewel et al, (2025), IMI Working Paper Series, 186
Recent Publications
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Why Has Migration Research So Little Impact? Examining Knowledge Practices in Migration Policy Making and Migration Studies
Journal article
Katharina Natter and Natalie Welfens, (2024), International Migration Review, 58(4), 1669 - 1700
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The EU’s new counter-smuggling directive proposal : persisting challenges and recommendations towards implementation
Policy briefing
Gabriella Sanchez et al, (2024), Policy Brief; 2024/01
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(Trans)formations de l’État et gouvernance des migrations forcées en Tunisie
Journal article
Lea Müller-Funk and Katharina Natter, (2023), Afrique(s) en mouvement, 6(2), 31 - 41
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Irregular migration in the time of counter-smuggling
Special journal issue
Gabriella Sanchez and Georgios A. Antonopoulos, (2023), Trends in Organized Crime, 26