The Surveys of Asylum-related Migrants (SAM) is a multi-country operational tool designed to collect information directly from people seeking international protection across the EU+ countries.
SAM offers a unique opportunity to address critical gaps in understanding asylum-migration dynamics to and within the EU. SAM complements data already collected during the asylum procedure by providing additional insights into key unresolved questions, such as migration drivers, pull factors across EU countries, travel histories, routes, secondary movements and personal decision-making processes, among others.
SAM offers an approach to bridge these gaps and address key questions, serving as an effective tool to support the efficient implementation of the Pact on Migration and Asylum while enhancing situational awareness in the EU asylum context. Using a survey-based methodology, SAM allows for the exploration of topics of interest and can adjust to evolving priorities and emerging needs.
Given the increasing prevalence of digital literacy, the current tool uses online, self-administered surveys that can be completed on smartphones, offering the possibility to survey large numbers of migrants in various EU+ countries at the same time.
SAM proof of concept was successfully tested in Greece, in October 2021, demonstrating the added value of using surveys with asylum-related migrants.
Currently SAM is organised into two strands: temporary protection (Surveys with Arriving Migrants from Ukraine) and asylum. In both, participation is anonymous, voluntary and restricted to adults.
- SAM Temporary Protection SAM Temporary Protection was launched in partnership with the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). includes a survey targeting displaced persons from Ukraine currently living in the EU+. This version was initially launched in April 2022 and a revised questionnaire was launched in February 2023. The online questionnaire is available in English, Ukrainian and Russian. The survey includes topics related to the journey to the EU, life in the host country, urgent needs, future relocation plans and return intentions, back-and-forth movements, family composition and educational background.
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SAM Asylum includes surveys targeting asylum-related migrants Asylum-related migrants include asylum seekers, persons granted refugees status or persons with subsidiary status, persons who applied for asylum and are awaiting their procedure to be concluded, and those who received negative decisions in their asylum application. in the EU+. This version was initially launched in 2024 in Romania, followed by Belgium and France. The questionnaire comprises modules covering topics related to family composition, educational background, professional activity, journey to the EU, future intentions, drivers of displacement and pull factors, needs and barriers to services. The online questionnaire is available in Arabic, Bengali, Dari, English, French, Pashto, Somali, Spanish, Turkish and Urdu. SAM Asylum primarily aims to provide strategic and operational insights to asylum authorities in EU+ countries and EU institutions.
Brief overview of recent public outputs from SAM:
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The thematic report on Movements and Returns (December 2024) comprises findings from over 7,600 persons displaced from Ukraine currently living in the EU+. The report offers insights on demographic and socio-economic profile, secondary movements and drivers for selecting a host country, back-and-forth movements and returns, also including a contribution from Gradus Research Company based on a panel of 1,250 respondents living in Ukraine and a qualitative analysis of interviews conducted with five experts in migration, based in Ukraine.
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The in-depth joint report with the OECD and IOM Voices in Europe (March 2024) highlights the prevailing themes emerging from forced displacement, drawn from the personal testimonies of over 1,500 displaced persons from Ukraine living in the EU. Quantitative and qualitative approaches were combined to underscore concerns about the safety of loved ones, war-related experiences, journeys to the EU, life in the host country, reflections on legal status, along with future intentions on potential returns or onward movements within the EU.
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The thematic factsheet on Education and Employment (October 2023) provides findings from over 4,200 persons displaced from Ukraine currently living in the EU+. It offers insights into the education and employment background and current status, demographic profiles, along with future perspectives related to both education and employment.
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The thematic factsheet on Reception and Registration (June 2023) presents findings from over 2,100 displaced persons from Ukraine currently living in the EU+. It provides insights into the reception and registration, demographic profiles, employment status, access to accommodation, levels of satisfaction with key aspects of living in the host countries and most urgent needs of the respondents.
Events such as conflict, economic hardship, poor governance, deteriorating political situations and social exclusion of marginalised groups all have the potential to internally displace entire communities or force them to leave their homes to seek refuge in other countries. The EUAA uses big data on media-covered events (GDELT) to monitor such events, which are selected and weighted according to the magnitude of the effect they are likely to have on asylum-related migration. In the interests of simplification, and for analytical purposes, these data have been aggregated into a composite indicator for each country of the world, the EUAA Push Factor Index (PFI). Read more information on applications of the EUAA PFI.
Migration, and especially asylum-related migration, is a complex system, affected by short-lived, context-dependent drivers that interact with each other in unexpected ways and vary wildly between individual displacement events. As a result, migration forecasts which depend on local knowledge and on/off low-quality data tend to be limited in time, space, and scope. To mitigate this issue and to create a system that can be applied at the level of the EU+ countries, the EUAA has developed a data-driven adaptive system that uses machine-learning algorithms to combine administrative data with non-traditional data sources at scale.
The push and pull factors of asylum-related migration, a literature review (download report, published in 2016) contains information that addresses the push and pull factors of migration, with particular attention to asylum-related migration and includes empirical studies and studies developing theoretical frameworks aimed at gaining insight into migration movements.
The review includes different kinds of studies, such as academic research, policy or position papers, briefs, and research reports. More than 300 resources were selected based on systematic searches in trusted search engines such as Web of Science and Google Scholar, and supplemented by extensive searches of the IOM library database.
An innovative framework for analyzing asylum-related migration. "International Organisation for Migration (2023), Harnessing Data Innovation for Migration Policy: A Handbook for Practitioners" (EUAA contribution in Chapter 4).
Carammia, M., Iacus, S.M. & Wilkin, T. Forecasting asylum-related migration flows with machine learning and data at scale. Sci Rep 12, 1457 (2022).
Napierała J, Hilton J, Forster JJ, Carammia M, Bijak J. Toward an Early Warning System for Monitoring Asylum-Related Migration Flows in Europe. International Migration Review. October 2021. doi:10.1177/01979183211035736
Forecasting asylum-related migration to the European Union and bridging the gap between evidence and policy. Migration Policy Practice Vol. X, Number 4, September–December 2020.
Using big data to estimate migration “push factors” from Africa. International Organisation for Migration (2020), Migration in West and North Africa and across the Mediterranean - Trends, risks, development and governance.
The quantitative assessment of asylum-related migration. A survey of methodologies.
