Contributing to fair and sustainable development of societies

MiDiS is grounded in an understanding of migration and human mobility that does not treat them as isolated or autonomous phenomena, but rather as one dimension of the profound transformations currently reshaping contemporary societies at the environmental, demographic, technological, and political-institutional levels.

MiDiS interprets these transformations as complex, contested, and mutually interacting processes of systemic transition — that is, processes of collective adaptation to changing contextual conditions.

MiDiS aims to contribute to the fair and sustainable development of societies by advancing research strands dedicated to studying and understanding the systemic transitions that most deeply interact with migration and mobility, in order to assess their social impact, identify emerging scenarios, and analyse their implications for governance and public policy.

Fostering innovation through interdisciplinarity

MiDiS seeks to foster integration across disciplines that belong to widely different scientific fields, with the aim of enhancing the level of innovation. Innovation is here understood as a transformative process capable of contributing to the development of new responses to the challenges facing contemporary societies, particularly those related to systemic transitions and human mobility, including new ways of framing problems, new methods for identifying solutions, and new models of governance.

One of the MiDiS’ core objectives is to ensure that innovation does not remain confined to the academic sphere, but instead generates impact on real-world processes. For this reason, innovation and impact are conceived by MiDiS as two closely interconnected dimensions.

Supporting the UN Sustainable Development Goals

The guiding value of MiDiS is to contribute to building societies capable of countering inequalities, particularly those related to origin, while promoting the free mobility of people as a means to achieve equitable and sustainable development.

Overall, MiDiS aims to support the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with particular regard to:

SDG 4.7 - Ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including, among others, through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development.

SDG 9.5 - Enhance scientific research (...) encouraging innovation and substantially increasing the number of research and development workers.

SDG 10.2 - Empower and promote the social, economic and political inclusion of all, irrespective of age, sex, disability, race, ethnicity, origin, religion or economic or other status.

SDG 10.7 - Facilitate orderly, safe, regular and responsible migration and mobility of people, including through the implementation of planned and well-managed migration policies.