Twenty years ago, with over 4 million Portuguese living abroad and a few tens of thousands of foreign citizens within its borders, Portugal could hardly be called a country of immigration. Today, with over 400,000 immigrants and several tens of thousands of nationals leaving the country for temporary work abroad, Portugal has decidedly become a country of both emigration and immigration, thus representing a singular case within the European context. Given this reality, the Migration Studies Research Group has been paying special attention to this specific feature of Portuguese society, conducting studies in the following thematic areas:

- Portuguese emigration in the context of international migrations: past experiences and current trends;

- Immigration in Portugal;

- The economic insertion of immigrants, and particularly their participation in the informal labor market as a central aspect of migrants’ social insertion;

- The emergence of a transnational perspective on past and present migratory flows.