We are delighted to inform that the 2025 IMISCOE Annual Report is now available. You can read it in full here. Below you can find the reflections of IMISCOE Coordinators Daniela Vintila and Jean-Michel Lafleur (CEDEM-University of Liège) on this 2025 activity.
On behalf of IMISCOE and its Network Office based at the Centre for Ethnic and Migration Studies (CEDEM) of the University of Liège, we are delighted to present this 2025 Annual Report, celebrating what we have accomplished together as a community over the past year.
While this report can only capture a selection of the many activities that shaped 2025, it offers a glimpse into the many ways in which IMISCOE’s institutional and individual members have come together to strengthen a more inclusive, open, and globally connected environment for scientific dialogue on migration. Through continued institutional development, impactful research, and vibrant scholarly exchange, our community has continued to further advance critical debates on the production, circulation, and accessibility of knowledge in migration studies.
These achievements belong to all of us. They are the result of the collaboration, commitment, and mutual support that make IMISCOE such a dynamic network. We are very grateful to the Board of Directors, the Executive Board, the Standing and Executive Committees, the IMISCOE community of PhD researchers, and all individual members whose contributions have helped make these accomplishments possible.
Throughout 2025, IMISCOE continued to broaden its individual membership and strengthen its position as the largest interdisciplinary network of scholars in the field of migration research. Our institutional membership also continued to diversify, with new members bringing valuable expertise, perspectives, and experiences that enrich the network as a whole. In particular, we were delighted to welcome our first institutional members from Brazil (Universidade Estadual de Campinas-UNICAMP) and Senegal (Laboratoire d'Etudes et de Recherches sur Genre, Environnement, Religion et Migrations-GERM at Université Gaston Berger de Saint-Louis), alongside the Center for Diversity, Democracy, and Inclusion in Education-ZBI at the University of Hildesheim (Germany).
Our scientific events continued to play a central role in fostering connections and collective reflections on recent developments, ongoing challenges, and future directions in migration studies. A
highlight of the year was the 2025 IMISCOE Annual Conference, hosted by Institut Convergences Migrations in Paris-Aubervilliers. Under the theme “Decentering Migration Studies”, over 1,000 participants on-site and nearly 450 online participants engaged in critical and reflexive discussions on how migration research is conceptualized, produced and circulated. Similarly, the 2025 IMISCOE Spring Conference, organized in a hybrid format by the Department for Migration and Globalisation (DEMIG) of the University for Continuing Education Krems (Austria), offered us an important space for stimulating exchanges on often-overlooked aspects of irregular migration across different world regions. Finally, the 2025 PhD School, hosted by the Institute of Geography and Spatial Planning at University of Lisbon and co-organized by the Critical Heritage Studies Hub at Jagiellonian University, brought together doctoral researchers from diverse disciplinary and institutional backgrounds who explored visual and sensory methodologies in migration research. Together, all these events demonstrate the importance of creating spaces where researchers can connect, exchange ideas, and learn from one another. They continue to be among the most valuable ways in which our network nurtures collaborations.
The IMISCOE Standing Committees continued to be at the heart of the Network’s scientific life throughout 2025, and the numerous panels, workshops, and seminars they organised during the year allowed us to continue the collective reflection on emerging debates in migration research. We were also pleased to see several recently established or reorganised Standing Committees—including SC Forced Migration and Refugees (FMR), SC Race, Racism and Discrimination (RACED), and SC Families, Welfare, Care and the Life Course (FamWeLC)—expand their membership, diversify their activities, and further shape these research areas within IMISCOE.
Our commitment to fostering an open, inclusive, and supportive research environment is equally reflected in our training activities for doctoral researchers and our continued support for Open Access publications. Throughout 2025, the IMISCOE PhD Academy and the PhD Network continued to grow, creating new opportunities for networking and professional development for doctoral researchers around the world. These initiatives not only support the next generation of migration scholars, but also strengthen the sense of community and connection that lies at the core of IMISCOE. We also remained committed to broadening access to migration research by supporting publication opportunities for scholars at all career stages. IMISCOE’s Research Series (in partnership with Springer) is now recognised as one of the leading OA book series in migration studies, while we also continued to sponsor Open Access articles published in the journal Comparative Migration Studies.
In sum, the highlights included in this Annual Report reflect parts of what we have been able to achieve together in 2025. We are deeply grateful to all IMISCOE members and friends for the energy, dedication, and generosity you bring to our network!
A heartfelt thank you goes to our wonderful colleagues at the IMISCOE Network Office—Angeliki Konstantinidou (Senior Network Officer), Carole Wenger (Network and Communication Officer), Marine Marechal (Finance Officer), and Valkyria Dantas Rattmann (Network and Communication Assistant)—for their exceptional professionalism, commitment, and team spirit. We also warmly thank our colleagues at the Centre for Ethnic and Migration Studies, the Research Institute in Social Sciences, the Faculty of Social Sciences, and the wider University of Liège community for their ongoing support in coordinating the IMISCOE network.
Thank you all for your engagement throughout the year —and we hope you enjoy reading this report. We look forward to seeing you very soon.
Daniela Vintila and Jean-Michel Lafleur
IMISCOE Coordinators