PhD Spring School 2026

What a great week of thought-provoking keynotes, workshops, poster sessions, and engaging discussions! A heartfelt thank you goes to the organising team, all contributors, and participants.

The SFB 1604 ›Production of Migration‹ successfully hosted its first International PhD Spring School on-site in Osnabrück. It brought together more than 60 scholars from 22 universities across 15 countries, who contributed as speakers, lecturers, workshop leaders, and discussants. Over four days, participants engaged in an intensive programme of exchange and collaboration in a supportive environment. Organised by PhD researchers for PhD researchers, the Spring School provided a space to learn from and inspire each other in an international and multidisciplinary setting.

The participating PhD researchers work on migration from a wide range of perspectives and foci – including labour migration, transnationalism, belonging, gender and intersectionality, displacement, asylum, policy, civil society, and knowledge production. The Spring School provided an opportunity to present and discuss their research and reflect critically upon the challenges of doing migration research.

At a time when migration is increasingly politicized and problematized, the Spring School placed particular emphasis on a reflexive approach to migration studies. This perspective, central to the ›Production of Migration‹ approach of the SFB 1604, ran throughout the programme and was further enriched and interrogated by contributions from researchers beyond the SFB.

The Spring School received funding from the German Research Foundation (DFG).

Organized in cooperation with:

PROGRAMME

The programme included lectures by Prof. Dr. Nina Glick-Schiller and Prof. Dr. Valentina Mazzucato, alongside workshops, paper presentation sessions, and a poster session. In cooperation with the IMISCOE PhD Network, the International Spring School addressed not only the challenges faced by early career researchers, but also questions of sustaining curiosity, finding joy in research, and building scholarly community. Going beyond traditional academic settings, the programme featured a documentary screening of Derrière le soleil (Behind the Sun) followed by a discussion with the director Dhia Jerbi, and local excursions to civil society actors that deal with migration and its history in Osnabrück.

CONTRIBUTORS 

• Prof. Dr. Janine Dahinden (University of Neuchâtel)

• Dr. Franck Düvell (Osnabrück University)

• Dhia Jerbi (Director of Derrière le soleil)

• Prof. Dr. Hajo Holst (Osnabrück University)

• Prof. Dr. Shahram Khosravi (Stockholm University)

• Prof. Dr. Christine Lang (Osnabrück University)

• Dr. Stefan Manser-Egli (University of Amsterdam)

• Prof. Dr. Valentina Mazzucato (Maastricht University)

• Prof. em. Dr. Nina Glick Schiller (University of Manchester)

• Prof. Dr. Oliver Schmidtke (University of Victoria)

• Prof. Dr. Helen Schwenken (Osnabrück University)

• Dr. Lekh Nath Paudel (Osnabrück University)

• Dr. Mert Pekşen (Osnabrück University)

• Prof. Dr. Andreas Pott (Osnabrück University)

• Dr. Norma Schemschat (Osnabrück University)

• Dr. Nader Talebi (Humboldt University Berlin)

• Representatives of the IMISCOE PhD Network: Tulika Bourai (Birla Institute of Technology and Science) and Denis Zeković (Chemnitz University of Technology)