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Drivers and dynamics

Development processes shape human mobility in fundamental and often counter-intuitive ways. We examine how internal and international migration is driven by wider social, economic, technological and political transformations. Our research challenges assumptions that development will reduce migration and the sedentary foundations of much research and policy.

Development processes shape human mobility in fundamental and often counter-intuitive ways. We examine how internal and international migration is driven by wider social, economic, technological and political transformations. Our research challenges assumptions that development will reduce migration and the sedentary foundations of much research and policy. — Centraal minibus station, Kampala, Uganda

Projects within this theme

Improving the understanding of migration patterns within, to and from Africa over time. IMI is working with African researchers and universities across the continent to support research and build research capacity.

African Migrations Programme

Documenting global mobility and furthering our knowledge of international migration.

Database on immigrants in OECD and non-OECD countries

Generating new theoretical and empirical insights into the way states and policies shape migration processes in their interaction with other migration determinants.

Determinants of International Migration

Understanding the drivers and dynamics of high‐skilled migration, and the effect of policy on this type of migration.

Drivers and dynamics of high-skilled migration

EUMAGINE: Imagining Europe from the Outside investigated the impact of perceptions of human rights and democracy on migration aspirations and decisions. Funded by the European Commission under the Seventh Framework Programme, the EUMAGINE project involved more than thirty researchers in seven countries who worked to understand how people in Morocco, Senegal, Turkey and Ukraine relate to the possibility of migration. Following the end of the project in 2013, its data is now available to interested researchers.

EUMAGINE data

A collaborative European research project aimed at investigating the impact of perceptions of human rights and democracy on migration aspirations and decisions.

EUMAGINE: Imagining Europe from the Outside

Helping understand and prepare for future changes in international migration.

Global Migration Futures

Furthering our knowledge of the impact of immigration policies on the international migration of medical doctors.

International migration of medical doctors: Trends, drivers and policies

Capturing everyday mobility drivers to better understand the complexity of human mobility dynamics in the Great Lakes region.

Mobility in the African Great Lakes

In support of the EU Trust Fund, which was set up in November 2015 to address challenges of instability and migration, a Research and Evidence Facility (REF) has been created to collate and produce evidence and policy relevant knowledge

Research and Evidence Facility

Theorizing the Evolution of European Migration Systems (THEMIS) was a four-year project which took a fresh look at how patterns of migration to Europe develop, focusing on the conditions that encourage initial moves by pioneer migrants to become established migration systems (or not). Following the end of the project its data is now available to interested researchers through the UK Data Service [click through section to access link]

THEMIS data

A fresh look at how patterns of migration to Europe develop, focusing on the conditions that encourage initial moves by pioneer migrants to become established migration systems (or not). Seeking to bridge the theories on the initiation and continuation of migration, and to integrate the concept of agency in a systems theory approach.

Theorizing the Evolution of European Migration Systems