Targeted policy responses for irregular migration require better knowledge about the characteristics of the irregular migrant population and dynamics of irregular migration, as well as about the effects of policy measures. Yet, quantitative data relating to regular migration is scarce, often outdated and contested. The inadequacy of current data makes it challenging for stakeholders to develop and monitor policies.

The EU Horizon research consortium MIrreM, which will run from 2022 to 2025, will address the challenge of insufficient knowledge about irregular migration and on regularisation in Europe by actively involving relevant stakeholders in every stage of this project: as co-creators of its results and as stakeholders to its mission.

This video is a recording of the launch conference of “MIrreM” (Measuring Irregular Migration), a new research project funded by the European Commission, which runs from 2022 to 2025, and will address the lack of data and knowledge about irregular migration and about regularisation, in Europe and in North America.

You can read the programme below and watch the video of the launch here.

00:00:00 Opening remarks and presentation of the MIrrem project. Albert Kraler, Co-Director, Centre for Migration and Globalisation Research, Donau University Krems.

00:08:17 Panel I: Data and estimates on undocumented migrants.

Moderated by Daniel Howden, Managing Director, Lighthouse Reports.

00:15:55 Jan Braat, Senior Policy Advisor on Migration, City of Utrecht and Chair of the City Initiative on Undocumented Migrants (C-MISE).

00:23:05 Dita Vogel, Senior Researcher, Universität Bremen.

00:31:31 Tamas Molnar, Project Officer, Justice, Digital and Migration Unit, European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA).

00:43:11 Q&A

00:58:36 Panel II: Regularisation of undocumented migrants: framing on a political level. Moderated by Anna Triandafyllidou, Canada Excellence Research Chair in Migration and Integration, Toronto Metropolitan University.

01:05:10 Alan Desmond, Lecturer, University of Leicester School of Law: the 2022 regularisation programme in Ireland.

01:11:04 Eduardo da Fonseca Quá, Head of International Relations Unit, High Commission for Migration, Republic of Portugal: Portugal’s 2020 regularisation.

01:19:54 Axel Kreienbrink, Coordinator of the research center Migration, Integration and Asylum, Federal Office for Migration and Asylum, Federal Republic of Germany: the case of Duldung in Germany, and current proposals for a country-wide regularisation.

01:30:04 Q&A

01:57:43 Closing remarks. Albert Kraler, Co-Director, Centre for Migration and Globalisation Research, Donau University Krems.