A new Skills Lab ‘Community on Migration’

By Mariavittoria Garlappi, Senior expert on Skills and migration at the ETF

Putting ETF in the lead on skills and migration

The ETF is reinforcing its approach to skills and migration with the aim of providing more evidence-based policy recommendations to the sector. It specifically aims to ensure that labour migration is a positive, safe and beneficial option for individual workers, for hosting countries and for countries of origin.

A key action of ETF’s newly enhanced integrated approach is a new expert community on migration (MIGCOM) launched recently in April 2025 and hosted under the ETF Skills Lab Network. Focused on the skills dimensions of migration, the community will provide a space for networking and learning among those individuals and researchers who will join, working to identify and address topics of common interest.

In this post, I explore why the ETF is choosing to focus so much attention on this topic at this point and what you can expect to happen next.

Skills: getting the best out of labour migration

Skills are the best asset to make the most out of labour migration. The knowledge and the expertise migrants bring and acquire in view of migrating, while working abroad, and upon return are the drivers for economic and social developments of their countries of origin and of destination, and for their personal and professional development (when this works effectively, we can talk of the triple win of migration).

Labour migration flows are growing worldwide due to many factors, such as demography, lack of employment opportunities, economic transformations, climate crisis and wars. Labour migrants in 2022 amounted to nearly 168 million people, equivalent to 4.7% of the global labour force, according to ILO. The European Union is looking for talents from abroad for many economic sectors and at all skills’ levels due to its demographic winter and labour market needs. According to the European Commission, 1 million migrants are needed every year in the EU to make up for the demographic shortfall.

But there are still many challenges to address. More needs to be done to understand the links between mobility, skills development and employment, and to support the full potential of the skills’ agenda of migration to be beneficial in a triple win way.

A new ETF integrated approach

As the EU agency helping partner countries improve employability of their citizens through policy reforms of education and training systems, ETF is at the heart of the triangular relationship between training provision, access to national labour markets and labour migration. As such, ETF intends to play a leading role in fostering evidence-based reflections and putting forward policy recommendations so that labour migration can become a better, well-structured and safe option of employment for those citizens of partner countries who wish to undertake it.

Focus areas include skills anticipation methods and approaches, skills provision methodologies and principles, and skills and qualification recognition procedures and measures. Labour migration can be interpreted as an opportunity for partner countries’ nationals, be they potential migrants, seasonal migrants, long-term migrants or returning migrants – and also for economic immigrants and asylum seekers and refugees.

Supporting evidence-based policymaking is at the heart of ETF’s work. For this reason, research and analysis of labour migration related issues, challenges, good practices and viable solutions have been a priority for action for a few years now. Several studies in this respect have been conducted on policy implications, skills needs, modalities for skills provision and qualification recognition, all available at Skills and migration | ETF and related webpages.

But more analyses are needed, new solutions identified among researchers across the world through regular exchanges of ideas and of proposals. Young researchers and PhD students from partner countries should be encouraged to undertake their research careers on the skills dimensions of migration so as to help their countries in the policy dialogue with EU Member States and other countries of destination.

What’s next?

The new ETF integrated approach to skills and migration intends to address these needs and opportunities through a number of actions, and in a spirit of collaboration and peer learning with all those individuals and researchers who will join. Notably, the following actions are planned:

• A Community on Migration (MIGCOM) has been launched as of April 2025 to bring together interested researchers and institutions. It is hosted under the ETF Skills Lab Network and you can become a member easily at any time by clicking here EUSurvey - Survey. MIGCOM will identify areas of common interest, providing a space for networking and learning among members.

• Thematic webinars to share knowledge and debate about critical issues and possible policy solutions will be organised before and after summer 2025. Stay tuned to know about the topics of discussion!

• A call for papers will be launched in June 2025. Whereas the conceptual thread of the call will be around skills dimensions of migration, researchers will have a chance to share their work around findings and conclusions building on their experience. Abstracts will have to be submitted by June and final papers by December 2025.

• A publication will be produced out of the selected papers to become a guiding tool for further research and for policymakers and policy implementers. It is expected by end 2026.

• An international conference to present the papers and implications for action will also be held during 2026.

The journey has just started and we hope it will bring interesting and useful insights and proposals to improve labour migration policies in the long-term interest of all parties involved. 

We look forward to your constructive feedback and further ideas and actions to explore!