CfA: Migration Governance and Border Regimes in Wider Europe

We invite PhD candidates and early postdoctoral researchers (with no more than five years' experience since obtaining their PhD) specialising in the social sciences and humanities to apply for the Migration, Governance and Border Regimes in Wider Europe summer school. The event will take place in Regensburg, Germany from 30 May to 5 June 2027. The summer school is organised by the RETLAMI-SEE project, funded by the European Union (Horizon Europe) and implemented by the University of Banja Luka, the University of Vienna, the Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences, and the Leibniz Institute for East and Southeast European Studies in Regensburg, Germany.

In line with the project’s focus on migration, the summer school will explore migration governance in Europe and the impact of European Union and member state policies on neighbouring countries. We aim to critically engage with border control practices, their extraterritorialisation, and the surveillance regimes they engender. For instance, we will discuss the politics of (in)visibility in relation to migration to Europe. At the same time, we will highlight the agency of migrants who navigate these constraints and subvert repressive border regimes, as well as the ways in which migrant activists try to shift the debate. We also aim to understand the dynamics of changing migration patterns, such as the recent transformation of countries like Croatia into net immigration countries, and the implications of these processes for European migration governance. The summer school will address three main topics: 

1. EU border and migration regulations and their repercussions for third countries 
2. Migration governance and the migration transition in wider Europe 
3. Migrant agency and migration activism 

These issues will be examined from various connected disciplinary perspectives, including political science, history, sociology, human geography, social anthropology and related disciplines. During the week, there will be lectures, keynote presentations, workshops, breakout sessions and film screenings. These will address the legal and political frameworks of migration control in the European Union, its impact on neighbouring countries, and the practices of migration control and isolation of migrants, as well as repatriation attempts. The programme will also cover aspects of legality and illegality, and civic, socio-political and artistic interventions. 

The programme will conclude with a roundtable discussion involving policymakers, experts and activists. 

The working language of the Summer School will be English. The organisers will cover travel costs for Summer School participants up to 350 EUR, as well as 
accommodation. 

Please send your application, including a maximum two-page letter of motivation, your CV and, if applicable, a list of publications, as a single PDF file to niesser@ios-regensburg.de. 
Deadline for applications: 15 December 2026

Letters of confirmation will be sent out at the end of January 2027.

For questions, please contact Jacqueline Nießer via email: niesser@ios-regensburg.de