Global Migration Institute Winter School

The Global Migration Institute is proud to host the 2026 edition of the Winter School, taking place from November 9–13, 2026 at Toronto Metropolitan University.

The Global Migration Institute Winter School is a week-long intensive program combining theoretical inquiry, methodological innovation, and experiential learning. Through seminars, hands-on methods workshops, and close mentorship from senior scholars, participants will gain both the critical foundations and applied skills necessary for conducting rigorous research in the digital age. The program also integrates site visits to immigration and settlement non-profit organizations, cultural institutions, and research hubs in downtown Toronto, enabling participants to observe how digital technologies and governance practices intersect with everyday realities of migration and settlement. The 2026 Winter School programme brings together expertise from migration studies, global governance, critical data studies, international law, and human rights. This collaborative environment allows participants to engage not only with academic debates but also with practitioners and community stakeholders, situating their research in real-world contexts. Activities during the week include keynote lectures, skills workshops, roundtable dialogues, hands on learning opportunities, networking sessions, and social activities.  

Participants will be expected to present on a subject of interest related to the winter school programme on the final day. The week will provide opportunities to develop your ideas and receive feedback from peers. Participants may come with prior research interests/projects on the theme that they wish to develop over the course of the week.  

Digital technologies and migration studies: Impacts on governance, research methods, and ethics

Across the globe, states and international organizations are increasingly deploying digital technologies, from biometric registration systems and AI-driven risk assessments to mobile applications mediating access to services, as instruments of migration management. While these tools promise efficiency and innovation, they also raise urgent ethical and political questions about surveillance, discrimination, accountability, and the rights of migrants and refugees. Similarly, app-based platform work, algorithmic decisionmaking, and the externalization of environmental costs resulting from hosting energy-intensive data centres, have many implications for migrant labour and mobility. At the same time, digitalization is reshaping the research process itself. Migration scholars are navigating new opportunities and challenges in data collection, storage, and analysis. From digital ethnography and big data analytics to participatory and community-based approaches designed to counteract power asymmetries, ADTs are reconstituting the field of migration studies. These developments call for a reflexive and interdisciplinary engagement that can equip emerging researchers with the conceptual and methodological tools needed to critically assess digital transformations while remaining attentive to the lived experiences of migrants.

The Winter School will include:

• Lectures by leading academics on topics surrounding evolving conceptual and theoretical approaches that examine the intersections of mobility, technology, rights, and governance; 
• Training workshops on qualitative interviewing, digital storytelling, social media analysis and big data analysis;
• Research dialogues sessions with researchers conducting projects in areas of socio-economic impacts of ADTs, border surveillance, platform labour, and migrant decision making and the use of ADTs
• Writing circles and designated time to develop and present participant research topics and ideas
• Networking opportunities

Fees

General: $600 CAD 

Students and research staff at Toronto Metropolitan University: $450; Researchers/Students at IMISCOE Member Institutes (external link) : $450 

A limited number of fee reduction waivers are available, please indicate in the registration form if you would like to apply.

Who can apply?

The Winter School is open to graduate students, emerging scholars, faculty, as well as practitioners from the non-profit, private sector or national and international organizations.

How to apply?

Applicants must fill out an online application form and upload a short CV (maximum four pages) and cover letter (maximum two pages). The cover letter should describe the following:

• Short outline of your research interests, and relevance to the winter school topic;
• Why you want to attend the Global Migration Institute Winter School and how it will benefit your studies/work/research.

Applications are due: 11:59 PM, May 17, 2026

For questions, please email global.migration@torontomu.ca, indicating Winter School in the subject line.