The research project addresses the formation of immigration and integration policies in systems of multi-level governance from a comparative trans-Atlantic perspective. It investigates under what conditions and through what political processes initiatives in this critical field of the EU’s international competitiveness are successfully launched. Built on this insight and informed by the trans-Atlantic comparative perspective, the project explores successful models of managing migration and integration (best practices) and how they are linked to the political opportunities generated in systems of multi-level governance (including the increasingly important process of European integration). Based on a prior study of two Canadian provinces, two regions in Europe will be studied as in-depth case studies (North Rhine-Westphalia and Emilia-Romagna). They are located in Germany and Italy, two EU member states with significant recent changes to their immigration regimes and political systems that grant considerable political autonomy to the regional level. The Marie Curie Fellowship will be housed at Hamburg University’s Center for Global Governance (CGG), a centre of excellence in international, multi-disciplinary research on the transformation of governance in a globalizing world. The Marie Curie fellowship is designed in a way to allow for effective and sustainable forms of research collaboration and knowledge mobilization between Europe and Canada. A series of high-profile publications, presentations at European universities, joint workshops, transnational research projects, graduate students collaboration and fora of exchange between migration specialists at European and Canadian universities through pre-existing transatlantic networks are key initiatives to develop and nurture such mutually beneficial forms of transatlantic cooperation.