The objective of the EMN is not to engage in primary research, but to compile, evaluate and make accessible already existing data and information on selected topics of current interest. Its main missions are to harmonise reliable data within the fields of migration and asylum and to identify information gaps.
To achieve these goals, the network involves a great variety of actors and information sources at the regional, national and European levels.
The EMN has developed a number of research and analysis tools, described in detail here.
Each individual network member is in charge of carrying its own research for its part in the country study or report. Different network members participate in different studies or reports.
With respect to the EMN Research and Small-Scale Studies, each EMN Member and the Commission has the opportunity to propose study topics which are then narrowed down by a vote of preferences from all Network Members. The top three proposals are discussed and decided upon at an EMN meeting.
The scientific co-ordinator, in close co-operation with the Commission and the EMN Members, drafts the specifications for the study or report as well as the synthesis report.
In addition to set study projects, ad hoc information requests are another aspect of the research carried out by EMN Members.
When someone in the Network, be it national or at the EU level, needs information from other Member States, it uses the network to ask these ad hoc questions. Each relevant Network Member responds by doing its own research or asking among its own national network, and is able to provide information on short notice.
This ad hoc information request system allows for other studies to be carried out, or for comparable examinations to be made when drafting national legislation.
Example:
In March 2005, the national contact point received a question from the policy department about the procedures in other Member States on the age determination procedures for asylum applicants who claim to be unaccompanied minors. The question was forwarded to all network members and due to the quick responses, the NCPs have been able, within two weeks, to compose a comprehensive overview of age determination procedures in Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, and Sweden. This overview was very useful to the policy department. As such an overview may also be useful for others, it was consequently distributed to all network members and to all organisations within the national network.
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