Key opportunities and challenges for the use of big data in migration research and policy

Abstract

Migration is one of the defining issues of the 21st century. Better data is required to improve understanding about how and why people are moving, target interventions and support evidence-based migration policy. Big data, defined as large, complex data from diverse sources, has been proposed as a solution to help address current gaps in knowledge. The authors participated in a workshop held in London, UK, in July 2019, that brought together experts from the UN, humanitarian NGOs, policy and academia to develop a better understanding of how big data could be used for migration research and policy. We identified six key areas regarding the application of big data in migration research and policy: accessing and utilising data; integrating data sources and knowledge; understanding environmental drivers of migration; improving healthcare access for migrant populations; ethical and security concerns; and addressing political narratives. We advocate the need for increased cross-disciplinary collaborations to advance the use of big data in migration research whilst safeguarding vulnerable migrant communities.

Spatial dynamics of urbanization and refugees’ settlements: Case study evidence using mixed method

“…That might be one of the signi cant limitations for making evidence-based detailed public policy and planning without the effort of extensive primary data collected at the eld level. Indeed, big data to research refugee migration is a great challenge (Franklinos et al, 2020). However, it is expected that qualitative measures from expert interviews minimize addresses this enough to draw tentative conclusions.…”

“…The scope of the research is to (i) quantify the changes of the built-up area from 1985 to 2021, (ii) identify the population density over the study period using freely available open-source data sets, and (iii) qualify socio-economic impact, particularly in the housing sector, local business and other social indicators. Even though access to migration-related big data for robust research is challenging (Franklinos et al, 2020), an attempt to explore the relationship between refugee migration and urbanization is initiated.…”

Understanding the Climate Change-Migration Nexus through the Lens of Household Surveys: An Empirical Review to Assess Data Gaps

“…As for social networks, Spyratos et al (2019) used anonymized and publicly available data provided by Facebook's advertising platform to estimate the number of Facebook Network (FN) "migrants" in 119 countries of residence and concluded that these estimates could be used for trend analysis and early-warning purposes. Specifically concerning climate change, some have highlighted that in combination with field-level data derived from household surveys and key-informant networks, big data could be used to detect how sudden-onset natural disasters and progressive environmental change impact migration patterns (Franklinos et al, 2020). Along these lines, for example, Lu et al (2016) used anonymized CDR from a mobile network provider (Grameenphone) to retrieve the geographical position and movements of users, so as to be able to examine the human mobility effects of the 2013 Mahasen cyclone in Bangladesh.…”

“…Others have argued that the distance between the researcher and the research looms large for remotely generated data, posing challenges to validity and ground truth, as well as for the reliability and interpretation of research results (Kraly and Hovy, 2020). Operationally, while the potential for using such data to better understand migration dynamics has yet to be fully explored, integrating multi-topic household surveys with varied sources of big data requires not only addressing the significant technical and ethical challenges just highlighted but also the development of new methodologies that consider complex interactions over differing geographic and temporal scales (Franklinos et al, 2020). Furthermore, to leverage big data as a meaningful source of information for migration analysis, national statistical offices would need to work with all relevant stakeholders to manage the process of data production.…”

Conclusion: Migration Research in Times of Ubiquitous Digitization

“…Thus, on the one hand, scholars need to contemplate the consequences of publishing specific findings, especially on vulnerable subpopulations such as irregular migrants. On the other hand, researchers need to consider that political actors may employ newly developed methods to carry out their own agendas (Franklinos et al, 2020;Vinck et al, 2019). Another challenge is to make the data accrued by private corporations accessible to scientific repurposing.…”