Melinda Istenes-Benczi and Teodor Gyelník presented a research paper on the changing European discourse on migration at the Borders, Politics and Policies: Using Data to Power Border Research conference in Strasbourg on the 3rd and 4th June 2024, co-organised by the University of Victoria, Canada and the Euro-Institute of Kehl. The event formed part of the Jean Monnet Network project called Human-to-Military Security Database that CESCI is a project partner of.

The Jean Monnet Network ‘Borders, Human-to-Military Security Database’ was launched in 2020 with the leadership of Emmanuel Brunet-Jailly, leading scholar of Border Studies. The University of Victoria involved experts from France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland and Poland, accompanied with the Association of European Border Regions (AEBR) and the Mission Opérationnelle Transfrontalière (MOT). The main mission of the network is to lay the basis for a global database on borders. The partners collect, process and analyse border-related data on a dyadic basis with special emphasis on the recent crises shaking the European integration process, namely, the pandemic, the migration and the armed conflict in Ukraine. 

Under the initiative BIG_Database, not only American and European but also African and Asian scholars are working together for developing the database and to publish papers based on established datasets. Some results of this huge work have been presented at the beginning of June in the premises of the European Parliament in Strasbourg. The speakers discussed various topics from the role of Italian LNG terminals, the impacts of the European integration on twin cities, the African cocoa production to the delimitation disputes between Sardinia and Corse or the border disputes between the post-Soviet countries. Matteo Berzi and Benedikt Herrmann (Joint Research Centre) presented the Across project which is aimed at uniting all existing data on European cross-border cooperation on a single platform; while Ricardo Ferreira (DG REGIO) gave an overview on the initiatives made by the Commission for collecting and displaying data on the topic. Jean Rubió (MOT) spoke about the evolution of cross-border observation around France promoted by the association, Birte Wassenberg told the story of the Frontiers in Motion project.

On behalf of CESCI, Melinda Istenes-Benczi and Teodor Gyelník presented the paper “W/ordering in the EU. Changes of European discourses on migration” analysing the main official manifestations of the European institutions between 2015 and 2022 pointing at the changing tune of these documents. The study which gained acknowledgement on behalf of the audience is expected to be published in 2025.

According to the closing remarks of the project leader, the collaboration continues that CESCI is eager to take part in.