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This paper introduces and sets the context for a special issue on 'New European Youth Mobilities: Motivations, Experiences and Future Prospects,' which derives from the European Union-funded H2020 'YMOBILITY' project on current youth migrations and transitions across the European Union. It first introduces the YMOBILITY programme and its multimethod, comparative research effort. This is followed by a brief review of secondary data on the changing profile of youth migration and mobility in Europe. Then, we explore definitions of key terms central to the project, such as 'youth,' 'youth transition,' 'mobility,' 'skill,' and the notion of the 'learning migrant'. The final part of the paper introduces the 6 articles that make up the special issue, highlighting their most significant findings and outlining their value as an integrated set that offers new insights into the role of mobile young people as students and workers within European societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on migration intentions is relatively fragmented, traditionally drawing conclusions from relatively small survey samples, focussing on individual countries, or relying on public opinion polls which provide very few explanatory variables. This paper addresses these limitations by developing a multilevel model of an extensive range of macro, meso, and microdeterminants of migration intentions across different time frames. The paper utilises an online panel survey of 20,473 non-student respondents aged 16-35 from nine European Union countries. Ordinal multilevel modelling, with post-stratification weighting, is used to determine the key drivers of, and barriers to, migration intentions in both a pan-European model and nine separate national-scale models. The findings confirm the significance of macro, meso, and micro factors. Although socio-economic factors emerge as powerful explanatory factors, non-pecuniary factors are also important, including sensation seeking. There are broad similarities in the findings across the separate national-level models but also differences in the relative importance of socio-economic, gender, and personality factors. Migration intentions were highly dependent on the decision-making time frame: 17% of respondents over 1 year, but 30% over 5 years, are likely to migrate or to have made firm plans to migrate. The rank ordering of the countries challenges the notion of there being a simple differentiation between the newer and older member states of the European Union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The importance of inter-regional co-operation and innovation are widely accepted in the development rhetoric of the European Union. The highlighted importance of both themes in the context of borderlands has recently led to the coining of a new concept, cross-border regional innovation system. However, little attention has been given to the empirical analysis of the concept. This paper suggests a framework for empirically validating the concept by examining the levels of integration between cross-border regions. The outcome is a proposed framework that can be operationalised by measurable indicators of cross-border co-operation in a regional innovation system setting. The framework was further tested with illustrative empirical cases that demonstrate its feasibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Migration researchers have demonstrated relatively limited engagement with experimental research. The strongest engagement has been with natural experiments, which observe actual migrant behaviour, typically analysing migration behaviour before and after particular events, but have limitations in terms of control over the 'experiment'. In contrast, researchers have relatively neglected the contribution of true experiments involving the manipulation or simulation of changes in the environment or institutions that shape migration. The paper compares the relative strengths of two types of true experiments - field and laboratory - in terms of their validity and reliability, reviews their current application in migration studies, and sets out opportunities to develop future research around these methodologies. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although migrants dominate employment in many major cities, the reasons for this, and the mechanisms by which they are recruited, are surprisingly under-researched. Focusing on the numerically dominant small hotel sub-sector in a global city, London, the paper first questions whether labour costs or competences are the main drivers of migrant employment, emphasising the difficulties of disentangling the relationships between these. Secondly, it analyses how migrant workers are recruited, and finds less evidence to support the concepts of ethnic queuing and co-ethnic recruitment as opposed to diversified migrant recruitment in the context of the super-diversity of migrant populations in a global city. Finally, it demonstrates that although there are compelling reasons for migrant employment in London’s small hotels, and that this is supported by a number of recruitment practices, they are unevenly distributed across establishments, reflecting the complex nature of migrant employment in a highly diverse sub-sector. The research utilises mixed methods, drawing on a survey of 155 hotel managers and 51 in-depth interviews. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Migration decisions are complex, involving both economic and non-economic considerations, and are oftenmade in conditions that depart significantly from the idealised information assumptions of many models. This paper uses a three-stage experimental research design to analyse migrant decision making in the face of complexity and varying information conditions (complete, imperfect, and overloading). It pays particular attention to differences based on previous migration experiences. It focuses on four main issues: (a) the balance between monetary and non-monetary factors; (b) the computation, via a range of methods, of relative decision weights attached to different factors; (c) the impact of country image in relation to information; and (d) the role of preferences in dealing with missing information. The research examines the decision weights for eight attributes of potential destination countries for a sample of 157 young, educated individuals in Slovakia. The relative advantages and challenges of utilising experimental methods in migration research are illustrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The analysis of risk in tourism is fragmented and uneven and focuses relatively narrowly on risk as a set of negative outcomes to be avoided by individuals, firms, or destinations. This article contends that, because of general, and sector-specific, limitations to knowledge, systematic and unsystematic risks are central to all forms of tourism activities. There is a need for a stronger theoretical understanding of the different concepts of tourism risks and tourism uncertainties that engages with how these are manifested at different scales, and can be analyzed from competing perspectives. The contribution and potential of both rationalist and constructivist approaches are assessed, focusing on individuals, firms, intermediaries, and destinations. The article concludes by identifying priorities for future research relating to both theoretical positioning and scale-specific issues ranging from individual decision making to the securitization of national tourism policies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]