We are happy to inform that the 2024 IMISCOE Annual Report is now available. You can read it in full here. In this Report, you will find a full description of our governance and research infrastructure, as well as a detailed account of the incredibly rich and diverse activities conducted by our Research Network in 2024. Below you can find the reflections of IMISCOE Coordinators Daniela Vintila and Jean-Michel Lafleur (CEDEM-University of Liège) on this 2024 activity.
This Annual Report marks the third edition published since the Centre for Ethnic and Migration Studies (CEDEM) of the University of Liège assumed the coordination of IMISCOE in April 2022.
Throughout 2024, IMISCOE continued its dynamic growth by broadening its membership, enhancing its research infrastructure, and supporting a diverse portfolio of scientific activities and events. These developments reflect the priorities and action plans jointly defined with the Network’s Board of Directors, Executive Board, Standing and Executive Committees, the IMISCOE community of PhD students, and the individual members of our Network.
This report therefore captures the energy, diversity, and intellectual vitality that defines our IMISCOE community. It provides an overview of a year marked by institutional developments, rigorous high-quality research, and meaningful scholarly exchanges—each contributing to our ongoing critical reflection on the global production and circulation of knowledge in migration research. The report also showcases important achievements in advancing our mission to foster collaborative research, organize scientific events that bring together migration scholars from around the world, and promote Open Access publishing and training opportunities in our rapidly evolving research field.
The continued diversification of IMISCOE’s institutional and individual membership reflects the strength of our shared commitment to advancing global scientific dialogue on migration. At the organizational level, in 2024 we had the pleasure of welcoming the Centre on Forced Displacement at Boston University as the first IMISCOE Member Institute based in the United States. In parallel, we engaged in fruitful exchanges with institutes, research centres, and scholars from Latin America, Africa, Asia, and Europe, with the aim of jointly reflecting on to strengthen our collective efforts to build a global, inclusive, and sustainable migration research network. These exchanges contributed to further expand IMISCOE’s individual membership, while also informing our Network’s policy to support the broader participation of colleagues from across the world in IMISCOE’s activities and events.
The scientific events organised throughout 2024 played a key role in strengthening connections within our expanding IMISCOE community and in providing spaces for collective reflection on recent developments, existing challenges, and future directions in migration studies. The 2024 IMISCOE Annual Conference—hosted by the Centre for Research and Studies in Sociology of the University Institute of Lisbon—brough together over 1,400 participants who joined the discussion regarding the social construction of migration across diverse global contexts and engaged deeply with the critical ontological and conceptual inquiries associated with the reflexive turn in migration research. Similarly, the 2024 IMISCOE Spring Conference—organized in a hybrid format by the Migration Research Center at Koç University in Istanbul— gave us the opportunity to critically examine how contemporary polycrisis dynamics influence mobilities and immobilities worldwide. Additionally, the 2024 PhD School, hosted by the MIDEX and GRACE research centres at the University of Central Lancashire, brought together young researchers from South America, Europe, Africa, Middle East, Central and East Asia, to facilitate in-depth discussions on how migration, race, and inclusivity intersect to shape human beings’ experiences in various world regions.
Throughout the year 2024, our incredibly active IMISCOE Standing and Executive Committees have also organized numerous activities aimed to provide inclusive spaces for scholars from different disciplinary backgrounds, career stages, and institutional affiliations across the globe to join the discussion on the future of migration research. Our research infrastructure was also further reinforced through several developments. The recently created Standing Committee on Race, Racism and Discrimination began its work with great momentum and organized numerous sessions for the 2024 IMISCOE Annual Conference. In addition, two existing Standing Committees—Migration, Migrants, and Labour Markets (IILME) and Families, Welfare, Care and the Life Course (FamWelC)—adapted their names and scope in 2024, to further reflect thematical areas of particular importance in migration scholarship. Moreover, the IMISCOE Board of Directors also approved in 2024 the creation of a new Standing Committee on Forced Migration and Refugees, which now serves as a dedicated space for scholarly exchanges in the field of forced migration and refugee studies, consolidating these research areas in the IMISCOE community.
As shown in this report, our ongoing commitment to fostering an open and inclusive research environment is also reflected in both our training initiatives for PhD students and our sustained support for Open Access publishing in migration studies. During 2024, the IMISCOE PhD Academy and the PhD Network continued to enlarge their membership and enhanced the research and networking opportunities for doctoral researchers worldwide. At the same time, we continued to support the opportunities for publication in Open Access for migration researchers at all career levels. This has been made possible through IMISCOE’s partnership agreement with Springer, which allows us to financially support the IMISCOE Research Series of books—now a leading book collection in migration studies— and to sponsor Open Access articles published in the journal Comparative Migration Studies.
While this Annual Report captures only a snapshot of the varied research activities carried out in 2024, we hope it conveys the dynamism and collaborative spirit that define the IMISCOE community. It also reflects the meaningful progress made towards cultivating a more inclusive, open and globally engaged research environment for migration scholars.
We are very proud of the continued dedication demonstrated by all IMISCOE members and friends. We are extremely grateful to all of you for your incredible work and support in advancing the scientific mission of our international and interdisciplinary network!
A heartfelt thank you to our wonderful colleagues at the IMISCOE Network Office—Angeliki Konstantinidou (Network Officer), Carole Wenger (Communication Officer) and Marine Marechal (Finance Officer) for their outstanding work, professionalism, and team spirit. We are truly grateful for all that you do. We also wish to extend our appreciation to our colleagues from the Centre for Ethnic and Migration Studies (CEDEM), the Research Institute in Social Sciences (IRSS), the Faculty of Social Sciences (FaSS) and the broader University of Liège community for their support in coordinating the IMISCOE Network.
Thank you all for your engagement—and we hope you enjoy reading this report. We look forward to seeing you very soon.
Daniela Vintila and Jean-Michel Lafleur
IMISCOE Coordinators