The Future of Mobility and Migration Partnership (FUTUREMIG)

Anna Triandafyllidou, Lara El Mekaui, Research Fellow

Contact: lara.elmekaui@torontomu.ca

Co-applicants: Dr. Ebrahim Bagheri, Dr Brenda Yeoh, Dr Naika Foroutan, and Dr. Mary Setrana

Collaborators: Alice Massari, Ana Beduschi, Sascha Priewe, Sarah Smith, Bernadette Klausberger

Migration Matters, Aga Khan Museum, German Centre for Integration and Migration Research, Asia Research Institute at the National University of Singapore, and Centre for Migration Studies at the University of Ghana

The Future of Mobility and Migration Partnership (FUTUREMIG) is an interdisciplinary partnership, led by CERC Migration, that brings together researchers, artists, and civil society organizations from four continents to explore the future of migration through both human imagination and AI-driven predictions. The project responds to the growing need for inclusive, forward-thinking approaches to human mobility in an era shaped by advanced digital technologies. 

FUTUREMIG will host themed Future Labs in Berlin, Accra, Singapore, and Toronto. Each lab will focus on a key issue shaping migration and mobility: ageing societies, climate change, mega-cities, and placeless work. These labs will serve as collaborative spaces for dialogue, experimentation, and knowledge co-creation across sectors and disciplines. By combining future studies methodologies with artistic and technological exploration, FUTUREMIG aims to influence policy, enrich public understanding, and build a global network equipped to navigate emerging migration challenges. The project also critically examines the role of advanced digital technologies in shaping migration futures, highlighting both its potential and limitations.

• Establish an international, transdisciplinary, and cross-sectoral partnership to explore human mobility in the age of digital and AI transformation, leveraging expertise from four countries in AI, Future Literacy, Migration Governance, and Digital Fine Arts to address global challenges.
• Apply and test future studies methodologies and toolkits from various sectors to examine how advanced digital technologies influence and are influenced by future migration and mobility, engaging diverse stakeholders in co-creating migration futures and governance strategies.
• Critically assess the benefits, limitations, and biases of advanced digital technologies in shaping future human mobility by generating and analyzing textual, artistic, and AI-created representations alongside human creativity.

• Will technology completely disrupt the way we ‘move’ (whether travelling for business, migrating, being displaced, or ‘traveling’ in the virtual space for work or leisure) and even the way we think about mobility? 
• How should we govern human mobility to prepare for the decades to come in view of the several challenges the world is already facing now?

Advances in transportation, digital technologies, and urban design have opened up possibilities for mobility scarcely imaginable fifty years ago. Air travel is widely accessible to a growing global middle class, even as growing numbers of digital nomads live and work from anywhere. But at the same time, residents of burgeoning mega-cities choke on the fumes of perpetual vehicular gridlock, and the poorest billion people have mobility options no better than those of our ancestors. The future of human mobility and migration, and the effects mobility will have on the future well-being of people and the planet, are open questions of critical importance, notably in the era of increasing adoption of advanced digital technologies which promise new types of virtual mobility (e.g. living and working through avatars in a virtual world).

FUTUREMIG is a global partnership grounded in future studies, bringing together researchers, artists, and civil society actors from multiple countries and four regions (Africa, Asia, Europe and North America), to cultivate a strong global collaborative exploration that values diverse perspectives and mutual learning. By engaging with real-world challenges and learning from international collaborators, FUTUREMIG fosters inclusive foresight and innovation. 

Through this methodology, FUTUREMIG not only investigates how advanced digital technologies shape migration and mobility but also empowers stakeholders to co-create knowledge and imagine alternative futures. This reflective framework ensures that learning is embedded in practice, and that future thinking is both inclusive and responsive to global change.

2028

FUTUREMIG is in its early stages, with foundational planning and coordination underway across partner institutions. The team is preparing initial working papers and conceptual frameworks to guide upcoming activities, including the Future Labs. Early-stage collaboration is focused on refining research methodologies, with workshop planning already in progress. The dates and locations for the Future Labs have already been planned; with the first Lab set to take place in Berlin, Germany on 25-26 June 2026, hosted by DeZIM, and Migration Matters

The second Future Lab will follow in Accra, Ghana in fall 2026; the third Future Lab will take place at the National University of Singapore in spring 2027 and the Toronto Future Lab will be hosted by the Aga Khan Museum and co organised with TMU in fall 2027.

Partnership Development Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC-CRSH).

ADTS; Advanced Digital Technologies; Future Methodologies; Ageing Societies; Climate Change; Mega-Cities; Placeless Work; Digital Nomadism; Mobility; Migration.