Migration governance and infrastructure

The project breaks new ground in the study of migration governance by looking at the so-called immigration countries from the perspective of emigration governance. The main underlying theme of this research is that emigration and immigration are two sides of the same coin and thus European migration governance should be approached from two angles to understand its full dimension. European Union is in fact still a region of emigration, with majority of flows staying within its boundaries, but important numbers leaving EU every year. Following the current global trends emigrants should be perceived as a potential asset. ÉMIGRÉ analyses emigration and diaspora policies of four EU Member States (UK, France, Spain and Poland) as well as EU-level responses to emigration to understand what are the drivers of the emigration governance in Europe and how the policies actually work. Key objectives are: 1) To close the knowledge gap on migration from the EU. 2) To enrich international migration governance studies by providing comparative analysis of actions of EU States in regards to emigration management, over time. 3) To ask what is the relation between State identity formation/shifts and success of policy learning/policy transfer processes between levels of governance. 4) To contribute to evidence-based policy making at the EU level. The project focuses especially on EU emigration to other OECD countries and in particular Canada. It employs a wide range of interdisciplinary methods to collect and analyse data. It also offers an intensive training programme.

La mobilité globale fait aujourd’hui partie de la texture sociale de la mondialisation et des relations internationales. Elle est à la fois une cause et une conséquence de la mondialisation et les réponses des institutions politiques nationales et internationales sont un enjeu clef de l’analyse de la gouvernance et des transformations sociales à l’échelle globale. Elle est un des points de tension de la modernité politique à l’échelle nationale et internationale. En s’intéressant tout à la fois aux organisations internationales, aux politiques migratoires nationales et régionales des Etats, aux modes d’organisation des espaces de vie des migrants et des réfugiés et aux dynamiques sociales transnationales de structuration de la mobilité, on observe le phénomène migratoire sous plusieurs angles et à différentes échelles. Les chercheurs impliqués dans ce projet ont choisi de privilégier une démarche empirique associée à un effort de systématisation qui emprunte à la science politique, à la sociologie, à l’anthropologie et à l’économie politique. Ils ont aussi choisi de lier leurs objets de recherche fondamentale à des enjeux politiques et sociaux immédiatement contemporains et à s’ancrer dans une réflexion scientifique sur l’action publique nationale et internationale, ses normes et ses principes vis-à-vis de la mobilité. Ce projet a pour vocation de donner une description précise de la mobilité et de ses dynamiques politiques et sociales, notamment en s’intéressant à l’observation empirique des pratiques des acteurs de la gouvernance de la mobilité (Etats, organisations internationales, migrants, réfugiés, réseaux). Il a pour objet d’élucider les représentations à l’œuvre dans ces pratiques, les dispositifs normatifs, idéologiques et identitaires qui les structurent. Le premier axe de ce travail concerne les pratiques et les représentations de la gestion de la mobilité en politique internationale. Il a pour enjeu la mise en questionnement de la notion de gouvernance globale de la mobilité, incluant migrations économiques et flux de refugiés. Les organisations internationales, leur interaction avec les acteurs non gouvernementaux de la politique des migrations internationales et des flux de réfugiés sont au cœur d’un dispositif politique qui est à la fois fait de discours et de pratiques. Le deuxième axe de ce projet observe les enjeux politiques de la gouvernance régionale des migrations dans deux espaces différenciés mais fortement marqué par leur contexte régional, l’Europe et le Moyen Orient. Il s’agit de déterminer la place de l’Etat dans la gouvernance de la mobilité à l’échelle régionale notamment dans le cas européen entre la fin du vingtième et le début du vingt-et-unième siècle. La « gouvernance » oscille entre intégration et « retour de l’Etat » dans la gestion des migrations internationales notamment avec la crise économique et financière, et on étudie les manifestations de cette « réaction souverainiste » sur la mobilité des personnes. Le troisième axe de ce projet s’attache à l’étude ethnographique des lieux de vie des réfugiés, les camps en ‘intéressant aux transformations sociales à l’œuvre dans ce espaces sociaux transnationaux institutionnalisés. Il s’intéresse notamment aux modes de gouvernance mise en œuvre par les acteurs humanitaires dans des contextes de conflits ou de crise et à l’autonomie (agency) des populations concernées et analyse celle-ci à travers la structuration et la matérialité des espaces de relégation et/ou confinement des réfugiés à l’échelle globale. Le quatrième axe de ce projet présente un dispositif prospectif qui vise à décrire les dispositifs contemporains les plus visibles de limitation de la mobilité –les murs et explorer des scenarii politiques d’ouverture des frontières et de libéralisation de la mobilité. Il constitue un complément et un prolongement théorique de l’ensemble des connaissances et analyses déployées dans le cadre de ce projet.

Risk and uncertainty are inherent in any decision-making procedure, but while a substantial body of work on the governance of international migration focuses on challenges posed to governance systems, we know remarkably little about the impact of risk and uncertainty on: (i) the cognitive biases of actors within migration governance systems; (ii) the susceptibility of these biases to change; (iii) the relationship between cognitive bias and broader questions of systemic resilience, vulnerability and adaptation and (iv) the similarities and differences in migration governance between major world regions. Each of these is a significant gap in our knowledge of international migration governance. To address this gap this project will focus on the context of decision to ask: what are the causes and consequences of the cognitive biases concerning risk and uncertainty held by actors in migration governance systems? The project will: (i) test the causes and consequences of the ‘frames’ held by actors in migration governance systems, specify the scope for these frames to change and to analyse the likely systemic effects of change on migration governance systems in four major world regions. (ii) develop a comparative regional analysis of the micro-political foundations of migration governance and their implications for system adaptation and change. (iii) significantly advance conceptual and methodological understanding of international migration governance through the use of concepts of systemic adaptation, vulnerability and resilience that bridge behavioural theories of choice with theories of institutional and organisational change. (iv) disseminate the results effectively through a range of appropriate outlets and through engagement with a range of users of the results of this work in academia, policy-making communities, NGOs and the wider public.

Risk and uncertainty are inherent in any decision-making procedure, but while a substantial body of work on the governance of international migration focuses on challenges posed to governance systems, we know remarkably little about the impact of risk and uncertainty on: (i) the cognitive biases of actors within migration governance systems; (ii) the susceptibility of these biases to change; (iii) the relationship between cognitive bias and broader questions of systemic resilience, vulnerability and adaptation and (iv) the similarities and differences in migration governance between major world regions. Each of these is a significant gap in our knowledge of international migration governance. To address this gap this project will focus on the context of decision to ask: what are the causes and consequences of the cognitive biases concerning risk and uncertainty held by actors in migration governance systems? The project will: (i) test the causes and consequences of the ‘frames’ held by actors in migration governance systems, specify the scope for these frames to change and to analyse the likely systemic effects of change on migration governance systems in four major world regions. (ii) develop a comparative regional analysis of the micro-political foundations of migration governance and their implications for system adaptation and change. (iii) significantly advance conceptual and methodological understanding of international migration governance through the use of concepts of systemic adaptation, vulnerability and resilience that bridge behavioural theories of choice with theories of institutional and organisational change. (iv) disseminate the results effectively through a range of appropriate outlets and through engagement with a range of users of the results of this work in academia, policy-making communities, NGOs and the wider public.

A typical Data Centre is comprised of multiple hardware and software components from different manufacturers, each with their own management tools, silo dashboard and limited sharing capabilities of business operations control data. This problem seems to get worse as IT-based companies are moving towards dynamic and complex virtualized and cloud environments. Moreover, when working on system´s safety, disrupting even one element of this fragile infrastructure runs the risk of affecting other systems, causing serious damage to the business. The average reported incident length is of 86 minutes, resulting in an average cost per incident of about $690,200. CorreAssess™ is an innovative game-changing Data Center Optimization Management system for business IT leaders that empowers companies with a complete visibility and control on all their IT infrastructure, through accurate detailed analytics insights delivered on a daily basis. It helps to generate valuable information for wise usage of IT infrastructure investments, resource allocation efficiency, IT alignment to defined SLAs, compliance, service availability, data recovery risks and easier cloud migration, alerting in advance before threats impact the company business. With CorreAssess™ companies will be able to reduce up to 25% the infrastructure investment costs and prevent risks of business failure by improving business continuity up to 80%. So far, €2M million have been raised and invested into the development and testing of the system to ensure its robustness and efficiency and move into the next stages of commercialisation. Within the overall project, we intend to finalise systems engineering and conduct a wide pilot trial within Europe. Current IP portfolio will be expanded to EU. The proposed work in Phase 1 of the SME instrument fits into our overall plan to reach the market by contributing the financial resources needed to plan a fast sound wider deployment of CorreAssess™ and its market uptake.

L’objectif du projet NIMIK est d’identifier l’émergence de nouveaux phénomènes migratoires à partir d’enquêtes sur la région de Kayes. La mobilité vers d’autres pays d’Afrique et d’autres destinations, notamment l’Europe, depuis cette région a fait l’objet de nombreux travaux dont il s’agira de faire un bilan critique. Ces travaux permettent d’approcher les phénomènes migratoires avec une profondeur historique particulière, et on s’attachera à déceler à partir de ce terrain singulier les changements en cours. Sur une durée de deux ans, le projet réunit une équipe d’une dizaine de chercheuses et de chercheurs, économistes, statisticiens, géographes, sociologistes et anthropologues, basés en France et au Mali. La pluridisciplinarité permettra de réfléchir à l’articulation des motivations sociales, économiques, politiques et climatiques dans les projets de départ et, éventuellement, de retours. Le projet NIMIK est structuré autour de trois thèmes. Le premier coordonné par Sandrine Mesplé-Somps (IRD, UMR DIAL), a pour objet de dresser un bilan de la dynamique actuelle des migrations au Mali, notamment en matière de genre et d’étudier les aspirations nouvelles à migrer. Avec notamment l’appui de Björn Nilsson (économiste, post-doc), cet axe mobilisera des enquêtes statistiques existantes et mettra en place une enquête originale auprès de jeunes maliens sur leurs aspirations au départ. Le deuxième est coordonné par Nehara Feldman (anthropologue, Université de Picardie) associée à Aïssatou Mbodj-Pouye (anthropologue, CNRS IMAF, Paris et Point Sud, Bamako) et Joanne Le Bars (géographe, post-doc) ; il examinera les dynamiques familiales liées à la migration et s’intéressera à l’émergence possible de nouvelles configurations migratoires, notamment la migration autonome des femmes. Le troisième, coordonné par Stéphanie Lima (LMI Movida et Université de Toulouse) et auquel est associée Hawa Coulibaly (géographe, post-doc, LMI MACOTER et UMR CESSMA), étudie les interrelations entre les migrations internationales et la gouvernance locale dans la région de Kayes. Outre les trois post-doctorants cités, seront impliqués dans le projet un doctorant du LMI MACOTER, deux étudiants boursiers de Point Sud, Bamako, Mariam Sissoko et Mbaré Fofana et une étudiante en master de l’Université de Picardie, Nassima Guilal.

GLOBE will approach the issues identified in the call focusing on global problems, which has been defined as strategic priorities in the 2016 EU Global Strategy: trade and development, security and the politics of climate change. We will include also the challenges of migration and global finance as additional areas, which go even beyond the call. The strength of our consortium lies in first-class academic expertise, as composed by top-level European and international scholars, which guarantees not only high-level analysis of the past and present problems of global governance but also contributes to determining solid forward-looking trends and scenarios. We will include participants from all over the EU as well as Argentina, Indonesia, and China. Regarding each of the global problems selected, we will identify the major roadblocks for effective and coherent global governance, by multiple stakeholders, and in a multi-polar world. GLOBE will be based on 11 workpackages, which will be divided into two clusters. While the first cluster will focus on these problems one by one, the second cluster will move to a more general and prospective level and will elaborate more on risks and drivers for the transformation of current global regimes in the domains examined. While the first cluster will provide policy-makers, academics and the general public with an analytical grip on the state of play in global governance, supported by new theoretical and methodological approaches, the second cluster will equip national and European policy-makers with tools to identify constraints and possibilities in several global governance scenarios in the years 2030 and 2050. Taking into account these alternative scenarios, we will recommend strategies on how the EU might promote enhanced global governance and deal with their future challenges and gridlocks.

Data include statistics on trafficking (only trafficking for labour purposes, not including trafficking for the removal of organs, forced marriage, forced adoption…). ILO mainly focuses on the root causes of trafficking, especially weak labour market governance, ineffective labour migration and recruitment systems using media reports, reports from NGOs, GOs, IOs, academia, trade unions.

Europe’s response to the so-called ‘migration crisis’ has been driven almost exclusively by a border control agenda. This has significantly reduced the number of refugees and migrants arriving in Greece, for the time being at least, but has done nothing to address the drivers or causes of migration to Europe, including the movement of people from Libya which continues unabated, or the protection and integration needs of those who are already here. Several years into the ‘crisis’, there is still no sign of a coherent long-term response. Both the reception infrastructure and the asylum system in Greece have failed to adapt to the needs of the refugees and migrants. This is partly a Greek failure but it is also a failure of the EU. Meanwhile escalating conflicts in Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan and Iraq continue to displace hundreds of thousands of people from their homes every day. The assault on Mosul (Iraq) which began in mid-October 2016 is expected to displace 1.5 million people, many of whom are likely to cross the border into Eastern Turkey just a few hours away. Understanding the dynamics of migration to Europe and why some of these people might decide to risk their lives crossing the Mediterranean remains a pressing concern.

The significance of migration as a social, political and broader public concern has intensified significantly. Migration is increasingly seen as a high-priority policy issue by many governments, politicians and throughout the world. As well as migration projections and scenarios that are essential for appropriate planning and effective policymaking, a deeper understanding of the root causes and drivers of migration and of their interrelation with people’s propensity to migrate is needed. Enhancing migration data is a crucial step to advance migration governance since better data is needed in order to accomplish sustainable social and economic development and national migrant data strategies are required to inform good policies. The project’s overall objective is to improve understandings of changing nature of migration flows and the drivers of migration, to analyse patterns, motivations and new geographies. Moreover, HumMingBird aims to calculate population estimates and determine emerging trends and future trends and accordingly to identify possible future implications of today’s policy decisions. Correspondingly, migration scenarios will be developed in a more forward looking manner that takes into account both quantitative and qualitative perspectives of different migration actors that might have an impact people’s decisions to migrate and consequent trends that will have an impact on our societies. Global scenarios will base on not only a realistic understanding of the drivers and dynamics of migration but also on the effects and effectiveness of past migration policies. Projects ambitions are to identify the uncertainties and reappraise, to explore the reasons why migration predictions may not hold and to demonstrate non-traditional data sources for migration research.

Movement is the primary response of animals to spatiotemporal heterogeneity in ecological conditions. The consequences of movement for individual fitness, populations and ecological communities give this behavior a central place in ecological theory. Human activities alter both spatiotemporal variations in ecological conditions triggering movements (e.g. resource distribution) and availability of movement corridors (e.g. destruction of migration routes). An understanding of factors driving animal movements, affecting their mechanics, and characterizing the preferred travel routes is essential for ecological theory and to evaluate the impact of human activities on population dynamics and on the potential for human-wildlife conflicts. Due to recovering ungulate populations and increased road and rail traffic, ungulate-vehicle collisions represent an important source of conflict. These collisions lead to casualties, injuries and substantial economical losses. Due to poor knowledge of movement drivers and mechanics, mitigating measures currently taken to minimize the probability of collisions are often inadequate and inefficient. Despite the 10-year old call for a “behavioral ecology of ecological landscapes” (Lima & Zollner 1996), only limited information about cognitive mechanisms underlying movement is included in fundamental and applied ecology. During the past decades behavioral scientists have made important progresses in the understanding of animal spatial cognition and goal-oriented movements in laboratory settings. This project proposes a novel interdisciplinary approach to develop a mechanistic movement model integrating theory on space use from ecology in natural settings with theories from behavioral and cognitive sciences in the laboratory. Such model will have a broad range of applications in theoretical and applied animal movement ecology. We will use this model to identify risk areas for moose-vehicle collisions in Norway and guide mitigating actions.

IN2RAIL is to set the foundations for a resilient, consistent, cost-efficient, high capacity European network by delivering important building blocks that unlock the innovation potential that exists in SHIFT2RAIL: innovative technologies will be explored and resulting concepts embedded in a systems framework where infrastructure, information management, maintenance techniques, energy, and engineering are integrated, optimised, shared and exploited. IN2RAIL will make advances towards SHIFT2RAIL objectives: enhancing the existing capacity fulfilling user demand; increasing the reliability delivering better and consistent quality of service; reducing the LCC increasing competitiveness of the EU rail system. To achieve the above, a holistic approach covering Smart Infrastructures, Intelligent Mobility Management (I2M)and Rail Power Supply and Energy Management will be applied. Smart Infrastructure addresses the fundamental design of critical assets - switches and crossings and tracks. It will research components capable of meeting future railway demands and will utilise modern technologies in the process. Risk and condition-based LEAN approaches to optimise RAMS and LCC in asset maintenance activities will be created to tackle the root causes of degradation. I2M researches automated, interoperable and inter-connected advanced traffic management systems; scalable and upgradable systems, utilising standardised products and interfaces, enabling easy migration from legacy systems; the wealth of data and information on assets and traffic status; information management systems adding the capability of nowcasting and forecasting of critical asset statuses. Rail Power Supply and Energy Management create solutions to improve the energy performance of the railway system. Research on new power systems characterised by reduced losses and capable of balancing energy demands, along with innovative energy management systems enabling accurate and precise estimates of energy flows.