European Migration Network

Contributions from a variety of actors operating on the local, regional, national, European and international levels are required to provide reliable, comparable and comprehensive information on the migration and asylum situation in the 25 European Member States.

Networking allows for greater visibility of the EMN. This visibility has two-fold positive consequences:

• more agencies and institutes hear about and often wish to collaborate with the EMN and/or the network members;
• the research and work the EMN is more likely to be utilised and discussed, thus fulfilling the EMN goal of providing reliable and current data for useful research.

Networking is a mutually beneficial activity for the EMN and its partners:

• Not only does the EMN and its partners collaborate on projects, but EMN partners gain access to the EMN information database for their own research.
• They also have use of the network´s infrastructure, allowing for ad hoc questions to be addressed by all the network members.
• Finally, network partners often have their own research and contact information published in the EMN newsletter, allowing for greater publicity of their own organisation and work.

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Nationally, the EMN Members establish networks involving a variety of partners, including:

• research institutes
• documentation centres
• non-governmental organisations active in the field of migration and asylum
• public authorities
• ministries
• national statistic offices

The national networks actively support the Network Members through their collection and continuous updating of information, as well as their contribution to selected research activities. The national networks have access to the information exchange and documentation system and can add to it themselves. Meetings take place among the national network members, focusing on EMN present and future activities and working within the national network to undertake these projects. The composition of the national networks reflect the aim of EMN to establish a non-exclusive platform that allows different voices to be heard.

Network Members have arranged networks ranging from just a handful of core partners up to 30 or more co-operation partners. The drafting of the EMN research studies and the small scale studies was successful, and fully benefited from the joint expertise and resources of the network partners. The partners were either directly involved in drafting parts of the study or asked to verify content and completeness of the research study.

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Linking the EMN to European and international institutions, organisations and networks working in the fields of migration and asylum is central to the establishment of the European Migration Network. In order to harmonise action between different projects and organisations, and to fully benefit from combined efforts wherever possible, it is of paramount importance to identify and precisely define EMN´s place within the infrastructure of existing and nascent initiatives in the field of migration and asylum.

In 2004, the EMN started establishing close contacts with the CARIM project, the EUMC, IMISCOE, the ODYSSEUS network, as well as with the OECD and the National Contact Points on Integration project

Besides regular information exchanges with these organisations during the EMN meetings, collaboration has taken place in regards to the development of a thesaurus and glossary. Furthermore, these partners contributed to the EMN research and analysis and a joint research project with the EUMC is envisaged for 2007.

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