On 27-28 November 2025, the European Sociological Association (ESA) RN35 held the Sociology of Migration Midterm Conference in Athens, Greece, in collaboration with the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. The Conference’s theme was Sociology of Migration after the 2015 ‘Migrant Crisis’, focusing on the impact of crises on migration and migration research…
Read MoreOn December 8, 2025, Zeynep Şahin Mencütek, GAPs researcher at BICC, delivered a GLOCAL lecture titled ‘Deportation and Migration Diplomacy in Contentious Times’.at Radboud University. Hosted by Nora Stel, the event brought together more than 25 students and faculty in person, alongside online participants…
Read MoreThe University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN) research team has unveiled groundbreaking findings from the GAPs Project, shedding light on the lived realities of Nigerian returnees. The dissemination event, hosted at Rockview Hotel in Owerri, brought together academics, government officials, civil society organizations, traditional leaders, and media representatives to discuss the…
Read MoreOn November 19, 2025 at the European Parliament, a stark warning was issued that the New Common European System for Returns (the “proposal”) is being shaped by political rhetoric rather than robust scientific evidence, risking the criminalisation of irregular migrants and the stripping of existing human rights protections…
Read MoreOn 18 November 2025, coordinators of the Horizon Europe GAPs project, Soner Barthoma and Zeynep Şahin Mencütek, took part in the EU’s flagship conference, “Ten Years of EU Migration – Research & Innovation.” The event gathered leading researchers, policymakers, and civil society actors to reflect on a decade of EU-funded migration research and shape future directions.
Read MoreWarsaw, November 2025 - A new CMR Spotlight policy brief authored by members of the Horizon Europe project GAPs – De-centring the Study of Migrant Returns and Readmission Policies in Europe and Beyond sheds light on key shortcomings in Poland’s return migration system and calls for a more systematic, rights-based approach to return governance…
Read MoreWe are delighted to share that Shapoor Hamid, researcher at Bilim Organization for Research and Social Studies, has published a new article in International Migration titled “Enduring Aspirations and Continuous Mobility: Formation, Realisation, and Repression of Migration Aspirations of Afghan Returnees.” The study was conducted as part of the European Commission–funded GAPs Project (“De-centering the Study of Migrant Returns and Readmission Policies in Europe and Beyond”).
Read MoreOn 8 October 2025, the Centre of Migration Research (CMR) at the University of Warsaw hosted the third and final Stakeholder Expert Panel (SEP) within the Horizon Europe project GAPs. The meeting brought together experts from academia, public administration, and civil society to discuss the tightening of Poland’s return policy, the erosion of legal protection for migrants, and systemic inefficiencies in migration governance. The event provided a platform to situate recent developments in Poland within the wider European debates on…
Read MoreThe GAPs team is pleased to announce the publication of a new article by our Nigerian partner, Ngozi Louis Uzomah, titled “Regional Disparities in Returnee Support, Stigmatisation and Reintegration in Nigeria.” within the Special Issue entitled “Processes of Migrants Return and Reintegration: A Comparative Perspective” in the journal International Migration. The paper underwent internal peer review by Zeynep Sahin-Mencutek, GAPs Co-coordinator from BICC, Germany, and Richa Shivakota from CERC in Migration, at TMU, Canada, a GAPs partner institution prior to submission to the journal.
Read More
