Cost Action DATAMIG – Hybrid Workshop 2026

 

Lines of Protection, Lines of Exclusion. Migration Governance at the Dawn of the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum

Organized together with Prof. Nicos Trimikliniotis & team Department of Social Sciences School of Humanities and Social Sciences University of Nicosia 25-26 June 2026

On Site Location: Department of History and Philosophy of Science National and Kapodistrian University of Athens University Campus, Athina 157 71 (link) Greece

In 2023, the European Cooperation in Science & Technology (COST) approved funding for the research network “Data Matters: Sociotechnical Challenges of European Migration and Border Control” (DATAMIG) to facilitate an international network of researchers; to deepen international collaboration; and to exchange and foster knowledge across disciplines.

We invite participants to join this year’s annual conference, online or on site. The conference starts on 25 June (09:00) and ends on June 26 (15:00) (CEST). Directly after the conference, the COST Action Management Committee will hold a meeting (15:00-17:00). We have prepared two calls for abstract (see below). You can respond (only) to one of the two following calls. Please indicate, if you would like to attend online or on-site . Please send your application to all (!) following emails: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], datamig.observatory@gmail. om, and [email protected] m with the subject [Annual Conference 2026 Participation], by May 17, 2026.

We have limited funding for reimbursing travel and accommodation costs for on site attendance. Active participation in the form of a presentation (day 1) or an input (day 2) and COST criteria (gender, junior researchers, non-inclusive target countries) will be taken into account when selecting and dedicating reimbursement funds to persons. Decisions will be communicated by May 20. The event will take place hybrid.

Best wishes,

COST Action DATAMIG coordination group

Call for Abstracts for Presentations (Day 1) Lines of Protection, Lines of Exclusion: Migration Governance at the Dawn of the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum

On 12 June 2026, the new EU Pact on Migration and Asylum will become fully operational across the European Union. The Pact was adopted on 14 May 2024 by the Council of the EU. The Pact represents the most extensive reform of the Common European Asylum System in over a decade and introduces significant legislative and operational changes across asylum procedures, border management, solidarity mechanisms, and cooperation with third countries. This one-day conference invites scholars, practitioners, policymakers, and civil society actors to critically examine the changes, continuities, and challenges of the Pact as it becomes operational. We are particularly interested in contributions that address its implications for migration governance, protection standards, and human rights, as well as its practical and legal impact on the ground.

Thematic Panels

Submissions are invited for the following panels, aligned with the Pact’s four pillars and broader governance issues.

Panel 1: Securing External Borders

  • Strengthening the EU’s external borders and operational implications
  • Institutional challenges and coordination among Member States
  • Balancing security with protection and mobility

Panel 2: Robust Screening at Points of Entry

  • Registration, identification, security, and health checks for new arrivals
  • Ethical, legal, and human rights considerations
  • Impact on asylum access, vulnerable groups, and procedural fairness

Panel 3: Eurodac and Migration Data Governance

  • Transforming Eurodac into a fully-fledged asylum and migration database
  • Data sharing, interoperability, and privacy issues
  • Implications for accountability, enforcement, and mobility

Panel 4: Border Procedures, Returns, and Crisis Protocols

  • Mandatory border procedures for applicants unlikely to need protection or presenting risks
  • Efficient returns and reintegration support for those ineligible for international protection
  • Crisis Regulation: rapid response protocols and operational support; addressing instrumentalization
  • Crisis as a mode of migration governance

Panel 5: Continuities, Challenges, and Critical Perspectives

  • Innovations versus continuities in EU migration governance
  • Safe country EU lists, accelerated procedures, and externalisation
  • Implications for solidarity, responsibility-sharing, and the right to leave under international human rights law

Please submit an abstract of max. 250 words to [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], datamig.observatory@gmail. om, [email protected] with the subject [Annual Conference 2026 Participation], by May 17,

2026.

Call for Abstracts for Critical Pedagogies of Datafied Migration and Border regimes (Day 2)

On day 2, the annual conference initiates a collaborative and collective endeavour that aims to develop teaching materials and formats for students and wider interested and engaged audiences that are critical, reflexive, and empirical, sensitive to political complexities and questions of solidarity and justice, and transformative in the sense of fostering critical consciousness among learners and questioning the given. With reference to critical pedagogies already developed in migration and border studies (e.g. Piacentini 2024) and science and technology studies (e.g. Conley et al. 2024) we will organize a design thinking workshop that allows us to specify most pressing themes, collect relevant literature, empirical cases, collaborative methods, and pedagogical tools, and draft a variety of course formats and syllabi.

We invite submissions that contribute to this task by providing brief inputs that develop a relevant theme/topic/issue/critique in the context of the datafication of migration and border control (max. 10 min) regarding

  • key readings, such as conceptual pieces, overviews, etc. and how they can be organized as
  • building blocks for our joint repository
  • empirical cases including piling together a list of relevant empirical sources (these also may contribute to the ongoing WG 3’s creation of a case collection of resistances to datafied migration and border control regimes or to WG1’s current mapping projects)
  • approaches, hands on experiences, best practices, and crucial methods and tools for critical pedagogies
  • audiences (scholars, students, critical civil society, volunteers, activists etc.)

Please submit an abstract of max. 250 words to: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] with the subject [Annual Conference 2026 Participation] by May 17, 2026. Please indicate which relevant literature, empirical cases, collaborative methods, or pedagogical tools you choose for your input in the workshop. Please explain why you prioritize a selected theme, approach or case study. Please include 2-3 references.

References

Piacentini T (2024) Developing a Critical Pedagogy of Migration Studies: Ethics, Politics and Practice in the Classroom. 1st ed. Bristol: Bristol University Press.

Conley SN, York E, Armstrong E, et al. (2024) Provocations from the ‘STS as a Critical Pedagogy’ Workshop. Engaging Science, Technology, and Society 10(1–2).