Events
Deep Dive “Migration 4.0” on “Forecasting”
Invitation-only event is part of a series organized by the German Presidency of the Council of the European Union.

Invitation-only event is part of a series organized by the German Presidency of the Council of the European Union.
Invitation-only event is part of a series organized by the German Presidency of the Council of the European Union.
On 5 November 2020, the International Organization for Migration’s Global Migration Data Analysis Centre (GMDAC) facilitated a Deep Dive seminar ‘The Benefits of Migration Forecasting Tools” as part of the #migration4.0 series organized by the German Presidency of the Council of the European Union. Julia Lendorfer (IOM/ EMN), Marco Fontana (Frontex) and Zsuzsanna Felkai-Janssen (European Commission) presented their work followed by a discussion with delegates from EU Member States and EU agencies. In this post, we will briefly highlight the main results of the seminar:
Julia Lendorfer (European Migration Network) presented the results from an EMN ad-hoc query for EU Member States regarding their current forecasting tools and key lessons from the recent EMN annual conference in Vienna on forecasting:
Marco Fontana (Frontex) described Frontex’ forecasting infrastructure and presented current efforts to pilot a new, more sophisticated forecasting approach to enhance analytical capacity and to support operational planning and deployment:
Zsuzsanna Felkai-Janssen (European Commission) reported on current results from the EC feasibility study on a EU forecasting tool:
Overall, the comprehensive and, at times, technical discussion shows that EU stakeholders have moved from debating the need for a tool to the actual “doing”. The apparent challenges and implementation difficulties should not distract from the fact that the discourse on forecasting has advanced considerably and that the awareness and knowledge regarding forecasting approaches have matured extensively. The seminar further contributed to continued coordination and exchange among EU stakeholders around the issue of forecasting and sustained the common goal of working towards practical solutions.
We would like to take a ”deep dive” and learn more about the benefits of current forecasting systems in the EU. Which forecasting tools are being used, how do they inform policy decisions and what should a future EU-wide forecasting tool a look like?
Zsuzsanna Felkai Janssen
Head of Sector for Migration and DG Coordinator for Artificial Intelligence
European Commission
Marco Fontana
Senior Pre-Warning Analyst
Frontex
Julia Lendorfer
Head of Research and Migration Law
IOM Austria/ European Migration Network
*References to Kosovo shall be understood to be in the context of United Nations Security Council resolution 1244 (1999).