Expanding the Knowledge Base of European Labour Migration Policies (KnowMig)
Funded by a EU Marie Curie Excellence Grant, 2004-8

The KNOWMIG project aims to produce and transfer knowledge on the impact of policy change on patterns of migration. It focuses on three main questions:
• How do policy changes, such as EU enlargement or new labour migration programmes, affect decisions on migration and settlement? In particular, how are such impacts mediated by migrant networks, which diffuse information and facilitate or impede adjustment to new opportunities?
• How far can such dynamics be observed in the case of recent East-West European migration? We explore how networks have shaped migration and settlement strategies of (potential) emigrants in Poland and Romania since the early 2000s.
• How do administrative agencies at national and EU level make use of research on these patterns in policy-making? This part of the project analyses patterns of knowledge transfer and utilisation in Germany, the UK and the European Commission.

KNOWMIG is a 4-year project, running from September 2004 – August 2008. It is being carried out by an interdisciplinary team of 5 researchers, led by Christina Boswell. Initially based at the Migration Research Group, Hamburg, in 2006 the team relocated to the School of Social and Political Studies, University of Edinburgh.

You can read more about the project under research and publications.