The profile of research in SCMR is highly diverse – like the phenomenon of migration itself.
Much of our research is interdisciplinary; other studies are carried out within the traditions of single disciplines, like Anthropology, Psychology or Economics. The two-way link between migration and development has been a major focus of SCMR’s research endeavour, with specialist expertise in Asia and Africa. Another important strand of research centres on Europe, with specialisms in Britain and on the Mediterranean and the Balkans. A third geographical focus is studies on migration to the Gulf States.
Aside from the migration-development nexus, which amongst other things looks at migration as a route out of poverty, SCMR researchers study many types of migration – labour migration, seasonal migration, refugees and asylum-seekers, professionals and ‘expats’, retirement migration, international student migration, return migration, the ‘second generation’, environmental migrants, and others. One recent topic of interest at Sussex is the relationship between climate change and migration.
SCMR researchers have been funded by the Department for International Development (£10 million over the period 2004-15), ESRC, AHRC, Nuffield Foundation, Leverhulme Trust, Joseph Rowntree Trust, UK Home Office, and several European funding schemes.