research in progress…
GAPS’ Working Paper Series ‘Decentring the Study of Migrant Returns and Readmission Policies in Europe and Beyond’ features recent research output by the team members of 17 partner institutions involved in the Horizon Europe GAPS project, and is open to all researchers working on similar topics.
We welcome proposals for Working Papers from researchers. Please contact: soner.barthoma@crs.uu.se
For further paper submission rules and author guidelines, more information will be available here.
This report analyses post-return practices and experiences of Iraqi migrants who returned from European countries within the framework of the GAPs project, based on survey data from 250 returnees across 11 governorates and complementary qualitative insights. It shows that, despite an expanded legal and institutional framework for return governance, weak coordination, limited financial and psychosocial…
Read MoreThis country survey report examines post-return experiences of Nigerian migrants within the GAPs project, drawing on a mixed-methods study of 288 surveyed returnees and 21 key stakeholders in Lagos, Abuja, Benin, and Owerri. It shows that while national policies and institutions provide a formal framework for return and reintegration, limited coordination, funding, and community engagement…
Read MoreThis concept note examines how the European Union’s evolving financial architecture has turned funding into a central tool for governing return and readmission beyond its borders. Tracing four phases from the 1990s to the New Pact on Migration and Asylum, it shows how external migration funding grew from fragmented development aid into a consolidated…
Read MoreThis survey country report analyses the post-return practices and experiences of 164 Tunisians returned from European countries as part of the GAPs WP8 survey (2025). It first situates return within Tunisia’s broader migration context and details the non-probability survey design implemented across 66 sites in 18 governorates. Findings show that return is largely shaped by external constraints…
Read MoreReturn has become a central pillar of contemporary migration governance in Europe, yet actual removal rates remain low, producing a persistent gap between the large numbers of non‑EU citizens ordered to leave and the much smaller share who are effectively returned. Against this backdrop, this concept note…
Read MoreThe report examines how the financial and administrative costs of coerced returns in Germany are high, complex, and systematically under-documented. It distinguishes between direct costs (such as implementation of return and reintegration programmes, deportation operations, detention, transportation, and escorts) and indirect costs (including the loss of prior integration investments, labour market impacts, and wider social effects), showing that available data do not allow for a genuine cost‑benefit analysis.
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