Global Mobilities Project

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Mobility across state borders is a key feature of our age. The number of transnational asylum-seekers, migrants, tourists, students, and refugees, not to mention the number of cross-border phone calls and online interactions, has grown rapidly—and often exponentially—over the last decades. This wide array of mobilities has also begun to attract the interest of social scientists. Thus far, however, empirical research on the topic has remained compartmentalized, with most studies being restricted to a particular country pair or region; migration scholars focusing on migration, education scholars on student exchange, and so forth. To date, no project has aimed at collecting a comprehensive, up-to-date global database of the many different forms of human mobility, from long-term resettlement to everyday commuting, and, then, analyzed them simultaneously in an integrated way.
To address this gap, we intend to set up a Global Mobilities Database (GMD), collecting information on a large palette of spatial mobilities, as well as their demographic, economic, sociological and legal-political aspects. Drawing on a range of sources from international organizations to private companies, from digital-trace to administrative data, the GMD will cover connections between countries from around the world in a longitudinal per-spective.

While our team at the EUI will be conducting original research based on the GMD, the database will also be open source. Therefore, researchers, the informed public, and policy-makers can use it for fact-based responses to a whole range of questions. The GMD will help in:

1. Describing the world we live in and the trends that shape its transformation;

2. Exploring the correspondence, and possibly interaction, between different forms of mobility;

3. Unraveling the association between mobility trends and other social, economic and cultural trends;

4. Eliciting and testing hypotheses about the causes and consequences of human mobility.

For instance, GMD could be employed to outline the effects of changing border control policies, phases of the economic cycle and technological diffusion in some countries and in given periods. The world we live in is shaped by human mobilities. The GMD aims to become a valuable resource by monitoring this crucial aspect of global change.

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Mobility hub or hollow? : cross-border travelling in the Mediterranean, 1995–2016

  • Type: Article
  • Year of Publication: 2021
  • Author(s): DEUTSCHMANN, Emanuel, RECCHI, Ettore, BICCHI, Federica
  • Citation: Global networks, 2021, Vol. 21, No. 1, pp. 146-169
  • Series/Report no.: [Migration Policy Centre], [Global Mobilities Project]
  • Abstract: The Mediterranean is often portrayed as a hub of human mobility. In this article, we test this widespread view by exploring the structure of travel flows in the region over [...]
  • Keywords: Inequality, Mediterranean, Mobility, Social network analysis, Travel, Visa regulations
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Assessing visa costs on a global scale

  • Type: Working Paper
  • Year of Publication: 2020
  • Author(s): RECCHI, Ettore, DEUTSCHMANN, Emanuel, GABRIELLI, Lorenzo, KHOLMATOVA, Nodira
  • Series/Report no.: EUI RSCAS, 2020/18, Migration Policy Centre, [Global Mobilities Project]
  • Abstract: Visas are an important means for countries to regulate incoming mobility flows. Past datasets and quantitative research on visas have focused on visa waivers, ignoring the fact that visas, where [...]
  • Keywords: Visa costs, Mobility, Migration, Tourism, Visa waiver, Network analysis
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Dissecting global air traffic data to discern different types and trends of transnational human mobility

  • Type: Article
  • Year of Publication: 2019
  • Author(s): GABRIELLI, Lorenzo, DEUTSCHMANN, Emanuel, NATALE, Fabrizio, RECCHI, Ettore, VESPE, Michele
  • Citation: EPJ Data Science, 2019, Vol. 8, (Art. 26) OnlineOnly
  • Series/Report no.: [Migration Policy Centre], [Global Mobilities Project]
  • Abstract: Human mobility across national borders is a key phenomenon of our time. At the global scale, however, we still know relatively little about the structure and nature of such transnational [...]
  • Keywords: Mobility, Migration, Air traffic, Migrant seasonal workers, Tourism
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Estimating transnational human mobility on a global scale

  • Type: Working Paper
  • Year of Publication: 2019
  • Author(s): RECCHI, Ettore, DEUTSCHMANN, Emanuel, VESPE, Michele
  • Series/Report no.: EUI RSCAS, 2019/30, Migration Policy Centre, [Global Mobilities Project]
  • Abstract: We devise an integrated estimate of country-to-country cross-border human mobility on the basis of global statistics on tourism and air passenger traffic. The joint use of these two sources allows [...]
  • Keywords: Transnational human mobility, Travel, Globalization, Network data, Tourism
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Everyday Europe : social transnationalism in an unsettled continent

  • Type: Book
  • Year of Publication: 2019
  • Author(s): RECCHI, Ettore, FAVELL, Adrian, APAYDIN, Fulya, BARBULESCU, Roxana, BRAUN, Michael, CIORNEI, Irina, CUNNINGHAM, Niall, DIEZ MEDRANO, Juan, DURU, Deniz N., HANQUINET, Laurie, POTZSCHKE, Steffen, REIMER, David, SALAMONSKA, Justyna Janina, SAVAGE, Mike, SOLGAARD JENSEN, Janne, VARELA, Albert
  • Citation: Bristol : Policy Press, 2019
  • Series/Report no.: [Migration Policy Centre], [Global Mobilities Project]
  • Abstract: This book offers an empirically-based view on Europeans’ interconnections in everyday life. It looks at the ways in which EU residents have been getting closer across national frontiers. The book [...]
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Towards a global mobilities database : rationale and challenges

  • Type: Technical Report
  • Year of Publication: 2017
  • Author(s): RECCHI, Ettore
  • Series/Report no.: Migration Policy Centre, Global Mobilities Project, Explanatory Note, 2017
  • Keywords: Mobility, Cross-border, Migration
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Publications: 6/6

Ties of more than 5,000 estimated trips between countries worldwide in 2016.
Source: Global Transnational Mobility Dataset

Global Transnational Mobility Dataset

The Global Transnational Mobility Dataset provides estimates of country-to-country cross-border human travels on the basis of worldwide statistics on tourism and air passenger traffic. The two sources are adjusted and merged, resulting into a set of data that covers more than 15 billion estimated travels over the years 2011 to 2016.

Explore the data on the KCMD's Dynamic Data Hub: https://bit.ly/2LdjNwK
Request the Dataset: GMPdataset@eui.eu

A direct download is possible through the 'D' key on the KCMD Dynamic Data Hub: https://bit.ly/2LdjNwK

The Global Transnational Mobility Dataset is available in the Zenodo data repository: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3911054

Read more about the data:

Recchi, E., Deutschmann, E., Vespe, M. 2019. Estimating Transnational Human Mobility on a Global Scale. EUI RSCAS Working Paper 2019/30
Recchi, E., Deutschmann, E., Global Human Mobility Rapidly Increasing, New Open-Access Dataset Shows, MPC Blog (30/04/2019)

A collaboration between the EUI’s Migration Policy Centre and the Knowledge Centre on Migration and Demography at the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre

Sub-National COVID-19 Incidence and Determinants Dataset

Sub-National COVID-19 Incidence and Determinants Dataset is available in the Zenodo data repository: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7583761

Read more about the data:

Recchi, E., Ferrara, A., Rodriguez Sanchez, A. et al. 2022. The impact of air travel on the precocity and severity of COVID-19 deaths in sub-national areas across 45 countries

Global Visa Cost Dataset

The Global Visa Cost Dataset reports the cost of country-to-country visas for tourism, student, business, work, transit, family reunification and other motives worldwide. Data come from governmental websites and refer to costs in 2019 (in US dollars).

The Global Visa Cost Dataset is available in the Zenodo data repository: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3911061

Read more about the data:

Recchi, E., Deutschmann, E., Gabrielli, L., Kholmatova, N. 2020. Assessing visa costs on a global scale. EUI RSCAS Working Paper 2020/18
Recchi, E., Deutschmann, E. 2020. Inequality at the Border: How Visa Costs Penalize Citizens of Poor World Regions, MPC Blog (15/04/2020)
Recchi, E., Deutschmann, E., Gabrielli, L., & Kholmatova, N. (2021). The global visa cost divide: How and why the price for travel permits varies worldwide. Political Geography, 86, 102350

Border Permeability Dataset

The Global Mobilities Project's Border Permeability Dataset contains, for 312 land borders globally, information on how permeable the border is in terms of cross-border transport infrastructure and potential controls via border checkpoints. Automatized computational methods combined with extensive manual checks were used to parse data from OpenStreetMap and the World Food Programme to detect cross-border transport infrastructure and checkpoints. Apart from various specifications of the overall border permeability index (BPI), the dataset also contains information on the amount of individual infrastructure types such as highways, cycleways, footpaths, railroads, etc. at land borders worldwide. Almost 40 different infrastructure types are covered.

Download the Border Permeability Dataset from the Zenodo repository.

Read more about the data:

Deutschmann, E., L. Gabrielli & E. Recchi. 2023. Roads, Rails, and Checkpoints: Assessing the Permeability of Nation-State Borders Worldwide. World Development 164: 106175.


See the GMP research community in Zenodo: https://zenodo.org/communities/gmp/

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knowledge-centre-migration-demography
Erasmusen

The Airport Factor: Assessing the Impact of International and National Aviation Mobility on the Spread of Covid-19


This project aims to assess the impact of air travel on the infection rate of Covid-19. We ask: To what extent does the incidence of the virus depend on the volume, origin and diversity of incoming passengers in airport areas in the months preceding the outbreak, once we control for compositional factors of the areas and their anti-epidemic policies? We consider both air travel data and local demographic, socioeconomic and policy-related characteristics, with a focus on sub-national zones that host major national and international airports. We will concentrate on the three global regions most affected by Covid-19 in early 2020: Europe, North America, and China. By estimating the impact of air travel connectivity relative to other factors, our study can help design travel restrictions that address the spread of future epidemics while minimizing the socioeconomic consequences of reduced mobility.

With Stefano Iacus (Knowledge Centre on Migration and Demography, JRC, European Commission), Michele Vespe (Knowledge Centre on Migration and Demography, JRC, European Commission), Spyridon Spyratos (Knowledge Centre on Migration and Demography, JRC, European Commission), Alejandra Rodriguez Sanchez (Humboldt University, Berlin), Luca Bastiani (IFC / CNR).

Publications

Recchi, E., Ferrara, A., Rodriguez Sanchez, A. et al. 2022. The impact of air travel on the precocity and severity of COVID-19 deaths in sub-national areas across 45 countries