This year’s EuMIGS panel at the annual IMISCOE conference was dedicated to the experiences and research of those involved in the first EuMIGS joint seminar on international student migration (ISM).
The conference, which was supposed to be held in Luxembourg, again had to take place online due to the Covid pandemic. The EUMIGS panel took place in the evening of the second conference day.
The panel was opened by the coordinators of the seminar, Sophie Hinger and Marcel Paul, from Osnabrück University. They shared some of the challenges and discoveries tied to coordinating a research-seminar with students and lecturers from 6 different European countries.
The coordinators’ intervention was followed by presentations of participants of the seminar. The students reflected on the experience of taking part in the seminar and collaborating with international peers on research projects in a virtual way. They furthermore presented the outcomes of their research projects.
Kyoko Shinozaki from Salzburg University, came next: she shortly reflected on the way she experienced the seminar as an external lecturer. She highlighted that this way of working together creates a translocal and transnational social space of mobility, in which classical distinctions tied to physical ISM, such as ‘home’ and ‘host’ institutions, are no longer valid.
Together with the two renowned experts on international student migration Nicolai Netz and Christof van Mol, the participants of the panel finally discussed whether the digitalisation of ISM will be rather a complement to ISM in the future or whether such formats will lose significance after the pandemic.
The students were really happy with their participation in the conference. For example, Line Huter, currently Double Degree student at Osnabrück University, commented that “it was really interesting to be able to present our work in front of researchers, to hear the work of the other groups and the experiences of other conference members regarding the digital course on ISM. I also really enjoyed the exchange of views between teacher, researcher and student.”
Her colleague, Silja Gerhard, student from Neuchatel University added: “It was a great opportunity to participate at the Imiscoe conference. I really enjoyed the PhD activity on Wednesday because it was very interactive but also the other presentations were very stimulating. However, my personal highlight was our presentation on Thursday, followed by an interesting discussion. I am looking forward to the next conference and I can recommend this experience to everyone.”