Georgetown University, Institute for the Study of International Migration

Georgetown University’s Institute for the Study of International Migration (ISIM) is one of the world’s leading providers of policy-relevant expertise on migration issues. This award renews support for a project, carried out in collaboration with UNHCR (the UN refugee agency), whose goal is to place the issue of planned population relocations on the international agenda and provide guidance to governments and other stakeholder involved in planning relocations in order to protect people from disasters and the effects of environmental change, including climate change. The project involves broad dissemination of a set of draft Guidelines (basic principles) for planned relocations, refinement of those Guidelines on the basis of feedback received from governments, international agencies, and civil society organizations, and development of a detailed operational guidance for carrying out planned relocations.

This grant provides renewed support to the Institute for the Study of International Migration at Georgetown University for a program of research and policy analysis aimed at contributing to the development of guiding principles and best practices for protecting people displaced by humanitarian crises. Activities to be carried out include providing expert guidance to existing inter-governmental initiatives; researching the role of migration as an anticipatory strategy for adapting to climate change; devising policy guidance for the planned relocation of populations in the face of climate change; and developing tools using big data to forecast crisis-related migration.

This grant to the Institute for the Study of International Migration (ISIM) at Georgetown University will inform the national debate over immigration by infusing policy deliberations with impartial evidence on the core elements of comprehensive reform proposals, such as the regularization of status of unauthorized immigrants and the future allocation of visas. ISIM will convene a series of meetings with experts and key immigration policymakers to frame current reform proposals, consider analysis and historical information on those topics, and refine options for reform of the current system. Public reports will be released throughout the grant period.

In support of the development of a set of guiding principles and effective practices for addressing crisis-induced migration (over three years).

To create a module of questions on migration and remittances for inclusion in household surveys in developing countries (over two years).