While migration predictions are an indispensable part of any attempt to proactively prepare for future opportunities and challenges, and to render migration more foreseeable, no single approach can capture all relevant aspects of a complex and multidimensional phenomenon such as migration.

Forecasting global migration was the topic of the 2020 Austrian European Migration Network (EMN) Conference, organized in partnership with the Austrian Ministry of the Interior and IOM’s Global Migration Data Analysis Centre (GMDAC), which gathered prominent academics, policymakers and practitioners who provided an overview of existing models, studies and forecasting tools, including their underlying assumptions and key results.

Some of the conference presentations are reproduced in this special MPP special issue, whose objective is threefold: first, to create awareness of the opportunities and limitations of migration forecasting by presenting key predictive approaches and their usage; second, to contribute to the dialogue on existing and emerging priorities and thus enable the identification of forecasting and policy needs; and lastly, to bridge the gap between scientific forecasting methodologies and policy requirements to facilitate proactive migration management and innovative solutions for policymaking.