CIVICA Research Hub: Researching Integration Pathways, Transconnectivity and Policy Innovation in Multilevel Migration Governance (TRANSCONNECT)

The Hub’s primary ambition is to establish a long-term research structure focused on migration and integration governance in Europe. With the novel concept of transconnectivity, it reframes integration as a two-way, multilevel process that maintains resilient ties to home countries, thereby turning migration into a strategic European asset. Its initial scope centers on analyzing post-2022 Ukrainian forced migration, which is seen as a structural force reshaping Europe’s democratic resilience.

Migration is no longer a temporary shock; it is a structural force reshaping Europe’s security, innovation capacity, and democratic resilience. The arrival of high-skilled Ukrainian forced migrants has exposed that current EU migration policies over-prioritize one-way “integration” and under-invest in maintaining resilient ties to home countries. Integration is seen as a zero-sum game: host countries gain, while Ukraine suffers human-capital drain and the weakening of innovation ecosystems crucial to resilience, recovery and EU accession.

There is an urgent need for the EU to turn migration from a vulnerability into a strategic European asset — for host societies and especially for Ukraine and to tap into transconnectivity: the ability to keep people, firms, ideas, and institutions productively connected across borders, even in wartime and geopolitical uncertainties.

The transconnectivity approach, a new paradigm for integration governance, reframes integration as a two-way, multi-level process rather than a one-way path into host societies. It recognizes that multilevel migration governance must move beyond low-skill, assimilationist models toward dynamic exchange across bureaucratic, corporate, and societal dimensions. Transconnectivity strengthens both host and home societies through ongoing collaboration, mutual adaptation, and shared innovation.

The hub will build on experiences with decentralized, collaborative, and participatory approaches in migration and integration governance, with the aim to show the relevance of bottom-up, networked solutions to deliver resilience and inclusion.

Project team leaders:

Mălina Iona Ciocea SNSPA

Violetta Zentai CEU

Sample Research centers represented in the hub

Center of migration research

Robert Schuman Center

Migration Policy Center

Center for Migration and Integration Research