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Vision
IMRU’s vision is to cultivate a research landscape where rigorous, interdisciplinary knowledge shapes the public conversation on migration, free from political distortion.
Mission
IMRU serves as a national hub for interdisciplinary migration research by connecting scholars across disciplines, producing original knowledge, and bringing evidence-based perspectives into public discourse.
About IMRU
Learn more about why IMRU was established, what drives our work, and how we pursue it.
Personnel
Meet IMRU’s scientific committee and advisory board members, as well as the visiting researchers and interns who contribute to its work.
Publications
Journal articles, book chapters, books, and other publications by IMRU’s scientific committee and advisory board members.
Latest News
On 3 November, the edited volume Media and Migration in Southeastern Europe: Shaping Narratives and Policies (Routledge, 2026) was presented in Athens, with the participation of its editors, including IMRU Coordinator Angelo Tramountanis, as well as researchers, journalists and representatives of UNHCR and the Greek National Commission for Human Rights (GNCHR). (3.11.2026)
IMRU Coordinator Angelo Tramountanis and Angeliki Dimitriadi, member of the IMRU Advisory Board, took part in the inaugural workshop of the Migration and Mobility Research Hub, “Rethinking Migration and Mobility in Cyprus: A View from the Eastern Mediterranean”, held at the Department of Social and Political Sciences of the University of Cyprus in Nicosia. (29-30.10.2026)
Angeliki Dimitriadi, member of the IMRU Advisory Board, spoke at the presentation and discussion of Jeanne Carstensen’s book A Greek Tragedy: One Day, a Deadly Shipwreck, and the Human Cost of the Refugee Crisis, organised by the Greek Council for Refugees and Melissa Network at the Beehive Athens. She was joined by Lefteris Papagiannakis, Nadina Christopoulou and the author, with an intervention by Laura Lo Castro, UNHCR Representative in Greece. (23.10.2026)
Iris Polyzou and Dina Vaiou introduce Camille Schmoll’s The Wretched of the Sea to Greek readers. They show how the book recasts the border as a prolonged condition of violence and uncertainty for women on the move, and reads their agency through the idea of “autonomy in tension”. (23/10/2026)
Eugenia Arvaniti unpacks Greece’s PISA 2025 results back to their root cause, showing that the gap between students with and without an immigrant background, one of the widest in the OECD, has less to do with migration itself than with how social inequality, language and the school system intersect. (28.09.2026)
George Kandylis traces the evolution of Greece’s temporary accommodation facilities for migrants, from the relative openness and rich public data of their early years to today’s walls, security measures and near-total silence, showing how spatial exclusion is now matched by an exclusion from information. (01.09.2026)
IMRU coordinator Angelo Tramountanis has co-edited, with George Pleios, Ioanna Kostarella and Naya Kalfeli, Media and Migration in Southeastern Europe: Shaping Narratives and Policies (Routledge, 2026).
The volume examines the complex interplay between migration, media representation, and policy formation in Southeastern Europe, and traces recurring patterns in migration coverage since the post-2015 “crisis”, from securitized, crisis-driven reporting to the marginalization of migrants’ own voices.
Angeliki Dimitriadi joined The Greek Current podcast, hosted by the Kathimerini daily, to discuss the events in Ceuta, Spain.
Her analysis covered the role of rumours in triggering migration movements, and the instrumentalization of large-scale crossings on two levels: by Morocco, as leverage against Spain, and by European states, which used the incident to push for harder-line migration policies. (08.08.2026)
Angelo Tramountanis spoke to French newspaper L’Express, in an article by Charles Carrasco, on the evolution of Greece’s reception and detention infrastructure — highlighting how newer facilities (Closed Controlled Access Centers – CCACs) increasingly rely on AI-driven monitoring and video surveillance. (08.08.2026)
Eleftherios Chelioudakis traces how an AI-enabled social media surveillance tool, cancelled by Frontex in 2019 following data protection scrutiny, quietly resurfaced 28 months later through a Hellenic Coast Guard procurement, raising serious concerns about mass surveillance, regulatory oversight, and the growing reach of border control into everyday digital life.
Angeliki Dimitriadi argues that as the EU turns to externalisation and return hubs, the evidence suggests these measures will not deliver the returns they promise, while Greece’s own data tells a story far removed from the political rhetoric.
Angeliki Dimitriadi spoke to the Dutch Broadcasting Foundation (NOS) on the near-total freeze in asylum registration in Greece since the entry into force of the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum on 12 June. (25.07.2026)
Angeliki Dimitriadi and Eva Papatzani contributed chapters to the edited volume Securitised Humanitarianism: Social Policy and the Refugee Issue in Greece (2015–2025). (in Greek)
IMRU Advisory Board member Iris Polyzou (National Technical University of Athens) has co-edited, with Dina Vaiou, the introduction and scientific review in Greek of Camille Schmoll’s book, The wretched of the sea. Women and border in the Mediterranean. Topos editions, 2026.
IMRU Coordinator Angelo Tramountanis presented on Greece’s role as a testing ground for EU border technologies at the Datamig Workshop “Technologies of Externalisation in EU Migration Governance” (Işık University, 22 May 2026).
Dimitris Skleparis argues that while attitudes toward migration are often explained by present-day fears, new evidence from Greece suggests that how past suffering is remembered, and interpreted, matters even more.
IMRU Advisory Board member Dimitris Skleparis (Newcastle University) has co-edited, with Violetta Hionidou, Across the Aegean: A Century of Forced Migrations Between Greece and Turkey, 1922–2022 (Routledge, 2026).
Angelo Tramountanis outlines the rationale behind IMRU’s establishment, tracing the gap between decades of rigorous migration research and a public debate increasingly dominated by security narratives and disconnected from solid evidence.
Angelo Tramountanis was interviewed on 102FM ERT3 radio
Angelo Tramountanis was quoted in Sunday’s Kathimerini newspaper (22.03.2026)
Eva Papatzani and George Kandylis organised a public discussion at the Open School for Migrants of Piraeus (22.02.2026)
George Kandylis published an article in EfSyn (Εφημερίδα των Συντακτών) newspaper (13.02.2026)
George Kandylis and Angeliki Dimitriadi each contributed a short piece to a compilation in EfSyn (Εφημερίδα των Συντακτών) newspaper (13.02.2026)
