IMI was established at ODID in 2006 with support from the James Martin School, now the Oxford Martin School. Its aim was to advance understanding of how migration shapes and is shaped by broader development processes. For over a decade IMI researchers produced a wide-ranging research programme that not only challenged existing discourses of migration research and built an empirical basis for significant advances in theory and measurement, but sought to ensure that the perspective of countries in the Global South took a central place in research and debate on migration.

IMI was originally founded as a collaboration between Professor Stephen Castles, then-director of the Refugee Studies Centre (RSC) at ODID, and Professor Steven Vertovec, then-director of Oxford’s Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS) at the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography.  

Professor Castles became IMI’s first Director. He was succeeded by Professor Robin Cohen (2009-11), Professor Hein de Haas and Dr Oliver Bakewell (co-directors, 2011-16) and, for the last year, by Dr Mathias Czaika. In September 2017 Mathias left Oxford to take up a new position as Professor for Migration and Globalisation at Danube University Krems, Austria.

All IMI research outputs, including working papers, datasets and other project materials remain accessible via the IMI website at www.imi.ox.ac.uk and will also be available through the website of the new IMIⁿ network which has been created to promote and extend the research agenda initially developed at IMI. The new IMI network website (www.imi-n.org) will be established shortly.

Migration research continues at ODID and across the University, notably through the newly established Oxford Migration and Mobility network.

The MSc in Migration Studies, which is jointly run by ODID and the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography, will also continue as before.