Belgian Presidency of the Council of the European Union

This conference is being organised by the Belgian Contact Point of the European Migration Network under the auspices of the Belgian EUPresidency. The chief aims of the conference are to provide an overview of the various methods of research into the socio-economic position of migrants and the life trajectories of migrants and to study specific types of quantitative methods that allow the tracking of cohorts of migrants over time. Best practices will be discussed and the question of how this type of quantitative research can have an influence on the development of a migration policy will be explored.

Each year, the European Migration Network (EMN) organises a conference to which the members of the National Contact Points of the EMN and other international experts are invited. This year, the conference is being held under the auspices of the Belgian EU presidency.

In this context, the Belgian Contact Point of the EMN will be responsible for organising the conference in 2010.  The EMN itself is coordinated by the European Commission. The aim of the EMN is to provide the information required by the European institutions and member states by means of collecting and analysing up-to-date, objective and comparable information on migration and asylum with an eye to appropriate policymaking within the EU.

This year’s EMN-conference will focus on the long-term follow-up of migration trajectories in the member states of the European Union.