ILO Safe Migration Research Paper Competition

The International Labour Organization is calling for original research on labour migration from academics, researchers and doctoral candidates in the East and Horn of Africa. Run through the ILO's Better Regional Migration Management (BRMM) Programme, funded by the UK's FCDO, the winning paper is presented to ministers and senior officials in Zanzibar.

What you get:

• First place: an invitation to the Fifth Labour Migration Advisory Group meeting in Zanzibar, Tanzania, 16 to 18 December 2026, with travel, accommodation and daily subsistence allowance (DSA) covered by the ILO
• First place: a place on the youth and media panel with a migrant worker
• Second place: a plaque and publication of the paper on ILO and regional channels
• Third place: a certificate and publication of the paper on ILO channels
• You keep the copyright and may later publish in a journal, citing the competition

What you'll do:

• Write an unpublished paper of 6,000 to 8,000 words, excluding references, with a 250-word abstract and a policy implications section of up to 400 words
• Address at least one theme, such as fair recruitment, protection of migrant workers, skills recognition, migration data, labour agreements, youth and gender, or return and reintegration
• Submit empirical research, policy analysis or a systematic or scoping review, anonymised, with an author form
• If you win, prepare a five to seven minute presentation and a two-page policy summary

Key dates:

• Call opens 3 November 2026
• Entries close 25 November 2026, 23:59 East Africa Time
• Judging 26 to 27 November 2026
• Winners notified 30 November 2026
• Fifth Labour Migration Advisory Group meeting in Zanzibar, Tanzania, 16 to 18 December 2026; awards on 18 December

More information:

• Full guidelines: the ILO's Call for Papers PDF, linked from the news release
• Submit to zewdiey@ilo.org and dawit.daniel@ddu.edu.et with the subject line Call for Papers, Country
• Questions to Yonas Berhane at zewdiey@ilo.org before the closing date

• Academic staff, researchers or doctoral candidates at a university or research institution in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Tanzania or Uganda
• Aged 18 or over, with a current institutional affiliation
• Single author or up to three co-authors; only one author travels if the paper wins
• One paper per author as lead author
• Papers using primary data need ethics approval or an explanation of why none was needed
• Unpublished and not under review elsewhere; text produced by AI tools is disqualified
• English or French, APA 7th edition referencing, Word file with no author names
• ILO staff, consultants, their immediate family and reviewers cannot enter