EPIM hosted its inaugural Forum on the 13th and 14th of November 2024, bringing together 38 actors from across the migration ecosystem in Europe, in Brussels. Forum members bring diverse lived experiences and expertise from civil society, government, private sector, social entrepreneurship, migrant activism, journalism and philanthropy.
A Reminder — What is the Forum?
The EPIM Forum is a unique Social Lab for the migration ecosystem to catalyse and cultivate other ways of working and relating to one another. It is a dynamic space for connections, collective sensemaking, learning, and visioning. With the Forum, we hope to simultaneously build:
· a relational infrastructure for new social connections to emerge and collective intelligence to flourish,
· an imagination infrastructure to envision a future where everyone belongs,
· a sensemaking and learning body to check in on EPIM’s strategy and directions and on the ecosystem’s progress towards the vision.
At the heart of EPIM’s vision is the belief that to improve migration in Europe, we need a shared purpose and better collaboration across the ecosystem. This requires rethinking our relationships, understanding power dynamics, and reimagining resource flows. We see the Forum as a centre of gravity for the ecosystem where we can plant new seeds to flourish in the future.
What the first Forum was about
Framed from a trust-building perspective, the inaugural Forum offered participants a chance to reflect upon the current state of the migration ecosystem and envision the transformation needed towards a regenerative, resilient, and forward-thinking ecosystem. We also had a chance to prototype some of these ambitions and put them into action, co-shaping the directions of EPIM’s Reimagining European Migration Governance cluster, guided by insights from the first-ever system map on migration governance.
Finally, the Executive Council — EPIM’s core governing unit was appointed, with Audrey Guichon, Carolina Gottardo, Elizabeth V. Kassinis, Eunice Romero, Hannes Einsporn, Ilaria Caramia, Janina Stürner-Siovitz and Letícia Ishibashi, serving on the council for its first term.
Takeaways
From EPIM to the world: The Forum is a venue for sensemaking and learning for both EPIM and the broader ecosystem. It is more than just shaping EPIM’s future direction — its theory of change is based on the idea of a ripple effect — when Forum members and their organisations amplify the visions, learnings and work of the Forum through the ecosystem. Tellingly many participants left with new ideas, energy and purpose — eager to incorporate these in their own contexts — to experiment and bridge across divides in the ecosystem.
The power of co-creation: The migration governance systems map harnessed the diversity and collective intelligence in the room to crowdsource actions and initiatives for the future of EPIM’s strategy — through concrete ideas, exciting examples and connections to other key actors. In addition, the map will also shape the work of other actors in the ecosystem, through Forum members who intended to employ it in their strategies.
A space collective and bold visioning: We spoke of a time of despair and frustration, and the need for spaces that sustain — providing much-needed hope and reassurance. Members agreed that the Forum should remain a hope-based space that supports actors in the ecosystem and provides both a retreat to discuss openly and safely, and a springboard for bolder visions.
From “What?” to How?”: Most conversations on migration in Europe are thematic and topical — focussed on current issues, hard facts, doctrines and narratives. Using the Three Horizons Framework, in a session led by the International Alumni Center gGmbH (iac Berlin) we focused on how to be in relationship with others in the ecosystem to achieve a positive vision for migration in Europe. While we all agree that relationships and working together are crucial, we rarely discuss how these are formed, enacted and made stronger. At times, this exercise felt abstract and one of the goals for the next Forum is to action these learnings and embody them in our daily practices.
What’s next
Future editions of the annual Forum will offer the opportunity to deep-dive into EPIM’s learning approach, sense and evaluate the overall programmatic strategy, sensemake thematic clusters and further and enaction the conversations on the future of the ecosystem.
By Sophie Ngo-Diep (she/her) and Hrishabh Sandilya, EPIM’s Co-Directors. Credit to Carlotta Cataldi for the beautiful illustrations.
This article was originally from this LinkedIn article.
