Research on migration facing realities and maximising opportunities : a policy review. A policy review

Migration has become a crucial issue for Europe, one that is likely to dominate policy and political agendas for many years to come. Migration is also increasingly presented, both in public and expert discourse, as a challenge requiring coordinated European responses, involving both Member States and the European institutions. At European level the issue of migration is of long standing. For almost twenty years, the EU has been building the foundations of an overarching and comprehensive migration policy, which has gone hand in hand with the realisation of people freedom of movement. Realising a common European migration policy requires a strong cooperation between the EU and its Member States. The recent large inflow of asylum seekers and economic migrants has forced policy-makers to react to the emergency. At the same time, a longterm and coordinated approach to migration is needed and beneficial to all European countries in order to better integrate migrants and work out smartly our cultural bonds. Even more than in the past, the development of a long-term vision for European migration and mobility policies needs to be underpinned by sound evidence and analysis, reliable and comparable data, of the kind that socio-economic research is in a position to contribute to. At European level, research on migration was widely supported by the Seventh Framework Programme for Research (FP7), in particular under the Socioeconomic Sciences and Humanities theme. FP7 research projects studied different aspects of the migration phenomenon such as integration and diversity, trans-nationalism, temporary/circular migration, migration and development, migration flows, data and statistical modelling, to mention just a few of the areas covered. The European comparative perspective brought in by most of this research is an important added value of working with multi-country research teams in the study of migration. Research on migration and mobility will continue to be an important component of Horizon 2020, the Research and Innovation Framework Programme for 2014-2020. However, at a time of unprecedented mobilisation of public resources to tackle the migration challenge, a stock-taking exercise of past and ongoing European socioeconomic research was felt to be necessary to bring this rich body of knowledge to the attention of policy-makers, academia and the general public