2025 December 03
Last month, PREMIUM_EU brought together policymakers and regional stakeholders in the Resilient Regions Expert Group for its third testing workshop of the project’s near-final data and policy dashboard. This session focused on one central question and key feature: how to clearly visualise and translate migration data, maps, trends, and migrant quotes into practical, policy-ready insight.
The workshop marked a key step in developing the new dashboard, designed to support regional decision-makers in responding to demographic change. The result is intended to be more than a data platform. It is a practical tool designed to help regions interpret mobility patterns and drivers, compare their situation to others, and identify policy responses that fit their specific context.
Testing migration data in practice
Unlike the previous two sessions, which focused on improving the usability, clarity and design of the interface for tailored policies and comparative regions, this workshop focused specifically on the dashboard’s migration data functions. Participants were asked to navigate the specific tool feature without guidance, to simulate real-life use in a policy setting.
Working with projections and population flows, participants explored:
- How migration patterns are expected to evolve
- Which groups are most mobile by age, gender and education
- How flows differ between regions and EU countries
The exercise revealed that while the data is seen as highly relevant, its usefulness depends on clarity and context. Participants emphasised that single data points are rarely sufficient for decision-making. Instead, trends over time and comparative perspectives are more valuable for understanding regional dynamics and informing policy choices.
Adding the human perspective to policy design
A second part of the workshop shifted focus from data to decision-making. Participants were asked to take on the role of local policymakers designing attraction strategies and to test whether the dashboard’s qualitative insights, based on fieldwork interviews with actual migrants in regions across Poland, Austria, Spain and Türkiye, supported their decisions.
Here, the discussion highlighted the added value of combining statistics with lived experiences. Migration decisions were described as complex and shaped by multiple factors beyond employment, including family, life stage and broader social conditions. The inclusion of migrant perspectives was seen as a way to better reflect these realities and to challenge overly simplified policy assumptions.
At the same time, participants pointed to gaps. They noted the need for clearer explanations, better framing of insights, some improved visualisation of trends and comparisons, and more explicit links between data insights and policy options.
Co-creating a policy tool with regions and key users
The workshop is part of a broader co-creation process within PREMIUM_EU. Through repeated testing with the Resilient Regions Expert Group, the dashboard has been continuously refined to reflect real policy needs and constraints.
As highlighted in the closing discussion, stakeholder input has played a decisive role in shaping the tool. The dashboard remains in development, with final data integration and adjustments leading up to its official launch at the project's final conference on 10 March: "The Future of Rural Europe: Making migration work for regions in decline". Registration is open - find out more about the event and sign up to save-the-date:
Final conference
