Research and migration conference begins
A two-day conference has begun in Brussels, Belgium, to explore and demonstrate how European research can support policy makers in designing effective and sustainable migration policies.
The Directorate General for Research and Innovation is hosting the event, which will showcase and debate past and current research on migration, including on integration, circular migration, migration and development, and data and statistical modelling.
Findings from social sciences and economic research will also feature at the conference, alongside the short to long term healthcare needs of migrants and the link between climate change and current and future migratory processes.
Also presented will be the Science4Refugees initiative, which is designed to identify and provide opportunities for refugees with scientific qualifications within the European Research Area.
Participants include leading researchers in the field of migration, many of them co-ordinators of EU-funded research projects, and EU and national policy makers, including Research and Innovation Director General Robert-Jan Smits and Research Commissioner Carlos Moedas.
In his keynote address, Moedas set out the importance of the research and innovation community in helping societies adjust to new trends in migration: “I need not explain the immensity or the complexity of the task before us. People are fleeing conflict. They are fleeing cities that have been razed to the ground. They are fleeing torture and persecution. Many have endured those who trade on human life … Therefore we must wake up,” he said.
“It is my firm belief that Europe’s researchers, scientists and innovators will be essential on that journey, because this is not a problem that can simply be ‘solved’. This is not a crisis that will simply come to an ‘end’. This is the new reality of the world we live in today, a reality we can only make better with decisions based on sound research and human compassion.”
You can watch the event live here today. Go here to watch tomorrow.
