During recent years persistent rates of international migration have generated a very high level social, economic and policy concern in Europe. Migration has become a multi-faceted phenomenon, transcending traditional explanations. There is much still to be understood about the causes, actualities and effects of these movements of people. The NORFACE transnational programme “Migration in Europe: Social, Economic, Cultural and Policy Dynamics” has been developed to explain the new challenges Europe faces with migration. It will contribute strongly to our theoretical understanding and knowledge and raise the level of comparative, multi-disciplinary and multi-level research on migration in Europe. The research will provide results with valuable knowledge to be used by policy makers at a national, European and international level. The implementation of the NORFACE research programme will contribute to the building of the European Research Area by strengthening European capacity for multilateral and transnational research. It will also provide an example of significant sharing of research funding between national research agencies in Europe. It will demonstrate that a major transnational programme can be created using a real “common pot” funding. The scientific co-ordinator, Programme Director, will ensure that the individual projects work together so that all the Programme's resources address the challenge of migration. The Programme will give new visibility to European research, and connect to researchers and policy makers both within and outside Europe. The Programme will stimulate the building of new international connections and networks, and provide new opportunities for the fruitful exchange of knowledge. In order to make major advances in our theoretical understanding and knowledge by bringing together a significant corpus of high quality international teams, the programme will need a budget of the order of €30 million to meet its ambitious objectives.