As World Refugee Day 2026 is being marked, it is worth pointing to the strong foundations that exist based on research, which can inform policy at a time when humanitarian needs are pressing, while border control practices lead to migrant deaths.

The project Quantifying Migration Scenarios for Better Policy (QuantMig) is featured by the European Commission as a success story of impactful research.

Can migration be forecasted in today's unpredictable world? How can policymakers and scholars navigate inherent uncertainty, with robust and realistic models?

Scientists who study migration often use surveys about people's aspirations, desires, or plans to migrate. New work by PRIO researchers shows that these valuable data are unevenly distributed, often inaccessible, and poorly documented when they are used.

​Over the past few decades, thousands of people have responded to survey questions about their thoughts and feelings about possibly migrating.

Thousands of people have responded to surveys with questions about their wishes or plans for migration and researchers have analyzed the data to identify the drivers.

This week Mathilde Bålsrud Mjelva defended her thesis "Rainfall variability and violent, state-based conflict: A machine learning approach to estimate context specificity", and achieved top marks.