Every year and at every age, humans move: they move to improve their lives, and, sometimes, to survive. As a result, the social, economic, and cultural fabric of our world is continuously evolving.

Recent environmental catastrophes have brought human migration to unprecedented levels, and the long-term consequences of climate change are yet to be fully understood.

About 150 million people from 20 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Latin America are expected to be displaced by 2050, but how, when, and where they will migrate is an open research question that calls for data-driven, mathematically-principled research.

Prof. Porfiri's stay at the Technical University of Cartagena will spearhead a transformative research project in collaboration with Prof. Ruiz Marín to begin filling these gaps in knowledge.

Through fundamental advancements in the fields of dynamical systems and network theory, the research team will lay the foundations of a predictive theory of environmental migrations, which will help policymakers prepare for emerging migration patterns.

Focusing on internal migrations in Bangladesh, the research team will establish a robust methodology to explain environmental migration, by teasing out the fundamental causal links that trigger human unrest.

Upon these causal links, a network-based model will be calibrated to elucidate existing trends and help forecast the impact of further changes in the future.

Scaling up the Bangladesh testcase to migrations across the borders of countries, the team will embark on the ambitious task of studying migration from Sub-Saharan Africa, which carries tremendous impact on the future of several European countries.

In addition to supporting this high-impact research endeavour, the stay of Prof. Porfiri will also allow for exploring an array of training programs between the region of Murcia and the United States.

Building on a number of successful examples led by Prof. Porfiri, the team will promote international programs that could allow exchange of Spanish and American students between Technical University of Cartagena and New York University toward degree and non-degree activities.