Migration and fleeing may largely impact people's lives, the lives of the migrants themselves as well as the lives of the people in the societies in which the migrants temporarily or permanently reside or return to. The interfaculty centre CESSMIR focuses on these 'social aspects' of migration, with specific attention for certain processes or target groups which are meaningful in the contemporary social context, such as 'fleeing' or 'refugees'.

We understand 'migration' as any possible form of mobility, such as for example asylum, resettlement, transit migration, return migration, re-/expatriation, labour migration, family reunion, temporary migration,... .

Because migration processes and the social groups that form part of these processes involve many different aspects, they touch several diverse scientific disciplines, such as economics, sociology, pedagogy, psychology, history, linguistics, criminology, political science, law, (migration) policy, social work and medical sciences. Therefore, an interdisciplinary collaboration when studying the social impact of migration and fleeing is a necessary value to achieve a better understanding of these processes and to support the societal debate on these topics. Promotors from no less than five different faculties at the University of Ghent participate to CESSMIR.

CESSMIR develops activities in the areas of research, education and service to society, activities that are also connected one to the other. Research, for example, is translated to education and in the service to society, and special efforts are made to bring research in and to practice. As such, research can be conducted on practices (e.g., the impact of training or support), or education can have a specific focus on practitioners and other stakeholders (e.g., the organisation of a training course).