CMRS Visiting Scholar
Saara Koikkalainen, a senior researcher at the Karelian Institute, University of Eastern Finland, is visiting CMRS during November-December 2025. Her visit is part of the MARS: Non-Western Migration Regimes in a Global Perspective project, which is a four-year research and training project funded by the European Commission’s Horizon Europe MSCA Staff Exchange Program.
MARS aims to enhance our knowledge and scientific understanding about global, regional and national governance of migration and mobilities and thereby contribute to the global and national efforts to facilitate safe, regular and orderly migration. It is implemented by European Universities and Associated Partners from around the world, including The American University in Cairo.
At the University of Eastern Finland, Koikkalainen is a member of the Borders, Mobilities and Cultural Encounters BOMOCULT research community. She has also worked at the University of Lapland and the University of Helsinki. She has been a Fulbright visitor at University of California, Davis (2010), a visiting researcher at European University Institute (2012), a visiting researcher at the Sussex Centre for Migration Research, University of Sussex (2019) and Study of the US Institute for American Culture and Values visiting scholar at New York University (2022).
Her research interests include, for example, migrant labor market integration, privileged and highly skilled migration, migration decision-making and migration governance. She has published in e.g., Nordic Journal of Migration Research, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies and International Migration, and in edited volumes under Palgrave, Springer, Routledge and Policy Press. She is the treasurer and a member of the executive board of Nordic Migration Research NMR, the Nordic network of migration researchers.
During her stay at CMRS she will give a public talk titled "Cognitive migration – the important role that imagination plays in international mobility." The talk focuses on prospective thinking —imagining potential futures—and sheds light on the classic puzzle of why some people move while others in comparable situations do not.