Migration and mobility of people (rural to city, city to city and country to country mobility) has been a dominant phenomenon for many centuries. Expanding of new technologies, development of societies, wars and conflicts in many countries, natural disasters and climate change have been the main driving factors for migration of people. In this regard the present era is called “migration era”. The globalization and acceleration of migration, migration segregation and feminization of migration and migration policies are the five main features of this era. Nowadays, migration has been a key policy and governance issue in all countries, both in national and international levels.

Migration, also, has a great importance in Iran in the past few decades. Since Iran is hosting a large number of immigrants and refugees from neighboring countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan. On the other hand, there are a flow of student, labor and forced migrants from Iran due to economic, cultural, scientific, and other reasons. Policymakers in Iran are facing several challenges in terms of international migration such as Afghan refugees and migrants’ condition in Iran, fluctuating trends of Iranians desire to migration -dependent on different factors, e.g. economic condition-, and inconsistent and inadequate data on international migration.

Since some Iranians are migrating to other countries, particularly to study or work, Iranian authorities should be able to manage unplanned migration of talented people and on the other hand to receive benefits of its migrants and diaspora knowledge, skills, connections, and wealth. Additionally, Iran as a host country for a large number of refugees should adopt various sets of migration policies and strategies in order to reduce the costs of immigrants and maximize the benefits of their presence in Iran.

Policy making in complex issues such as migration, particularly in Iran’s context with lack of rich experience in international migration field – which adopt its policies and operational programs after the huge influx of migrants, such as influx of large number of Iraqi and Afghan refugees, or after increasing outflow of unplanned Iranian students-, requires accurate and forward-looking policies as well as to pay attention to learn from successful experiences of other countries or international institutions in terms of international migration governance.

Migration governance is the main section in the “Iran Migration Observatory” which aims to help policy makers and authorities to adopt accurate policies in terms of both internal and international migration governance. The Observatory aims to investigate three main aspects of migration, including: 1) economic migration, 2) forced migration and asylum and, 3) student mobility and return migration in order to propose detailed policies in different aspects of migration in Iran.