Topic description and stories

Immigration and migration, and the issues that surround them, have become symbolic of the 21st century.

British attitudes to EU migrants can be shifted by relatable messaging

12 Sep 2025

A short profile of a migrant NHS worker that taps into values of duty and hard work produces a 20-point swing in positivity towards EU immigration...

Read more
Emerald Swamp, Tasmania

Study uncovers earliest evidence of humans using fire to shape the landscape of Tasmania

15 Nov 2024

Some of the first human beings to arrive in Tasmania, over 41,000 years ago, used fire to shape and manage the landscape, about 2,000 years earlier...

Read more
Asylum seekers on a small boat

“It's not one single trauma, it’s hundreds of traumas”

09 Nov 2023

Policies aimed at addressing the migrant crisis need to take into account the serious mental health issues faced by refugees and asylum seekers, say...

Read more

Devínska Kobyla Forest steppe in Slovakia

Drought encouraged Attila’s Huns to attack the Roman empire, tree rings suggest

15 Dec 2022

Hunnic peoples migrated westward across Eurasia, switched between farming and herding, and became violent raiders in response to severe drought in...

Read more
iris

The gift of identity

13 Apr 2022

Technology that recognises people’s unique iris patterns is giving a means of identification to millions of individuals across the globe.

Read more

Displaced lives: Investigating Europe's handling of the refugee crisis and giving voice to asylum-seeking migrants

30 Nov 2020

For the last three years, the RESPOND project has been investigating migration governance in 11 countries by foregrounding the insights of asylum-...

Read more

Medical workers in Syria

Syrian refugee health workers can help Europe cope with COVID-19

16 Sep 2020

Employing displaced Syrian healthcare workers is a 'win-win' for both host communities and refugees as it would strengthen national health services...

Read more
A cannabis setup inside a residential premises in the West Midlands. Image: West Midlands Police.

Cannabis farms are a modern slavery 'blind spot' for UK police, study suggests

15 Sep 2020

Migrants arrested for tending plants in the flats, houses and attics where cannabis is grown in bulk are often victims of trafficking and 'debt...

Read more
Subfossil trees preserved in Iceland

Silent witnesses: how an ice age was written in the trees

27 Feb 2018

What connects a series of volcanic eruptions and severe summer cooling with a century of pandemics, human migration and the rise and fall of...

Read more

Migrants arriving on the island of Lampedusa.

Human smugglers operate as ‘independent traders’, study finds

22 Jan 2018

First study to model the organisation behind trade in illegal border crossings shows no “Mafia-like” monopoly of routes from Africa into Europe via...

Read more
Refugees on a boat crossing the Mediterranean sea, heading from Turkish coast to the northeastern Greek island of Lesbos, 29 January 2016

Trading on human tides – the 'free market' of people smuggling

31 Jul 2017

Cambridge criminologists are using emerging sources of information – from court records to Facebook groups – to analyse the networks behind one of...

Read more
Still from Fire at Sea, the Oscar-nominated documentary by Gianfranco Rosi

Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker comes to Cambridge

09 May 2017

Hailed as “one of the most important artists in any medium”, the award-winning and Oscar-nominated Italian documentary filmmaker Gianfranco Rosi is...

Read more

Pages