The second Research Coordination Meeting of the Prague Process Migration Observatory took place in Vienna on 23 of July 2019. The meeting featured the discussion on the new cycle of research papers of the Migration Observatory that will see light at the end of 2019. During the event, each expert had an opportunity to present his draft research and receive concrete feedback from the peer-researches. Such feedback round in a small group of experts allowed identifying gaps and posing important research questions, which the papers shall further address.

The 2019 expert cohort majorly consists of the academic experts whose research will focus on various forms of irregular and humanitarian migration, migration and development nexus, and strategic policy approaches of the EU and partner states-members of the Prague Process in the field of migration. The issue of human trafficking will be in focus of an analytical report on irregular migration in the CIS countries and a policy brief on victims of trafficking originating from Ukraine. The nexus on migration and development will be in the centre of a policy brief on intra-regional mobility and diaspora engagement in the Western Balkans, a policy brief on the EU’s experience with policy coherence for development, and a policy brief on social integration of migrants in Russia. The peculiarities of strategic cooperation on migration of the Prague Process states with the EU and their non-EU neighbours will be addressed in a policy brief on Armenia’s migration relations with the EU and the EAEU, and a policy brief on the newly released EU Central Asia Strategy. Lastly, an analytical report on humanitarian migration from the Former Soviet Union countries to the EU will provide with a comprehensive and comparative picture in this area.

Building upon the experience of the first Research Coordination Meeting and recommendations provided by the expert group in 2018, the 2019 outputs of the Migration Observatory will be of a comparative nature and in most cases go beyond the national context of single states. The work of the Migration Observatory and its analytical outputs should, however, be further promoted among academia and NGOs to reach out to the research community and policy actors on different levels. All experts strongly supported the research focus on recent trends, which put a spotlight on things that policymakers do not have on their radars yet. The persisting need on better coherence between research and policy, as well as research and actual project activities was further highlighted.

Check the Repository of publications produced by the Prague Process Migration Observatory here.