Social sciences are interested in ethnic entrepreneurship as a chance for migrants to (better) integrate into the host labour market, and in consequence into a host society. Th e multidimensional models capture a wide range of factors at the bottom of the economic behaviour of migrant entrepreneurs, and they increasingly consider that migrants might profi t in business from sustaing their social ties with the country of their origin. Looking at Polish migrant entrepreneurs in eastern German regions bordering to Poland we plead for a relational perspective which considers migrants’ business activities in relation to the patterns of trans-border residential mobility and complex social and economic transformations in Polish and German border regions.

The inspiration for this article is the increasing number of businesses being established by Poles in Germany, especially in the eastern part of the country. Th e authors’ aim is to research the strategies of Polish entrepreneurs behind the western border and to point out the forms of their participation in the German labor market. We base our narrative on individual interviews with the experts in the fi eld of transnational entrepreneurship, and we discuss the motivations and the competitive advantages of Polish entrepreneurs. We describe their barriers and refl ect on the future of Polish entrepreneurship in Germany. As the context, we employ sociological theories relevant in the fi eld of migrations and entrepreneurship and look at statistical data illustrating the activity of Polish entrepreneurs in the Polish-German cross-border area. We answer questions about their ways of functioning there from the viewpoint of representatives of companies, institutions and organizations supporting them. In the article, we base our fi ndings on the knowledge, opinions and predictions of our experts.

Free Movement of People off ers new opportunities for European Union citizens migrating into the single market. Th is does however, bring controversy and public debates. Th is paper’s focus is placed on the “Polish plumber” case – a symbol of social dumping. We study the European Union eff ects on the self-employment practices through the experience of Polish immigrants employed in low-skilled occupation in France. First, the reasons for setting up in France and the diff erences between labour conditions before and aft er the opening of the French labour market to Polish Immigrants are examined. Th e paper then discusses the self-employment career trajectories of Polish workers in France. Finally, we examine the impact that the Free Movement of Workers has on low-skilled occupations and the immigrants’ adaptation and integration into host society.

Th e article presents the concept of “economisation of ethnicity” understood as a strategy of taking advantage of cultural resources of ethnic groups in conducting business activities. On the example of the Chinese and Indian communities it explores diff erent ways and patterns of using ethnic cultural and ethnic social capital for the development of own enterprises. Such strategies involve for example: attracting ethnic customers, employing ethnic workers, off ering ethnic goods. However, “economisation of ethnicity” means using ethnicity in a non-alienating manner. It includes also eff orts of integration with the host society, for example good knowledge of Polish language and culture. Th e article is based on the offi cial statistical data and results of the qualitative research conducted in years 2014–2017 within the grant project fi nanced by the National Science Centre.

The article focuses on selected aspects of transnational entrepreneurship, understood in terms of actions that go beyond national borders and lead to long-lasting innovations in sociotechnical spaces. These considerations rest on the ethnographic research conducted in years 2013–2016 in a globally oriented company situated in south-western Poland. While exploring the issue, the author moves between diff erent scales of analysis: from the macro-level of the postsocialist state, through the global infrastructure of neoliberal politics, to the specific working environment and the regional context. Th e adopted strategy of shift ing perspectives is applied in order to point to the larger political, historical and economic contexts in which specifi c places are embedded and which infl uence the trajectories of lives of employees of global enterprises.

This paper considers perception and realization of EU-off ered instruments and frameworks from the perspective of intra-EU mobile PhD candidates. In the context of current discussions about European Union research policies and their development, this paper shows who, how and under what circumstances doctoral candidates are participating and evaluating programs designed to encourage mobility and ‘excellence’. The basis for this research is 38 interviews with mobile PhDs candidates. It is shown that general knowledge about these programs is limited but positive, as the programs are known for their prestige. Universities and colleagues are the main distributors of information. The majority of our sample are not taking part in such programs and have no concrete plans to do so. This may be connected to their status as early-career scientists and their uncertain future.

Emigration is a chronic structural process of the Portuguese society. The discussion and key arguments raised in this chapter are mainly focused on data from a research project on Portuguese skilled emigration. Based on the outcomes of the BRADRAMO2 on-line survey to 1011 highly skilled emigrants it can be suggested that recent phenomena  in general, and the crisis that began around 2008 in particular, profoundly transformed the patterns of Portuguese emigration. Nowadays, the country faces a brain drain dynamic that is dramatically altering the profi les of national emigrants, emigration destinations, self-identity, and the strategies of those who leave the country. Academic mobility, mainly that promoted by the European Union (through grants from the Erasmus Program), created and fostered mobility fl ows that reinforced a latent mobility phenomenon. Once engaged in academic mobility programs, Portuguese higher education students tend to stay in the country of destination or, upon returning temporarily to Portugal, to evince a very strong predisposition to move to a country of the European Union. Th e profi le of Portuguese high-skilled emigrants reveals a trend towards a permanent and a long-term (as opposed to a temporary or transitory) mobility, an insertion in the primary segment of the labor market of the destination countries, a predominance of professionals connected to the academic/scientifi c system and to professions requiring high skills, and a latent mobility (aft er a period of study in the country of destination) rather than direct mobility fl ows (aft er having entered in the employment system of the sending country).

International migration of the highly educated has always been a characteristic of academia, however, specifi c circumstances in the Balkans in recent years, marked by wars and economic crisis, have additionally contributed to a large outfl ow of highly educated people from Serbia. Th e aim of this study was to identify value systems among the highly educated migrants from Serbia. Living in extremely complex social situations, having to speak two or more languages and being adapted to living in diff erent cultures, diff erent political and social environments might infl uence migrants’ value systems. For this purpose, a questionnaire has been constructed consisting of standardized scales –Value Orientation Scale (Kuzmanović 1995), Postmaterialism Scale (Inglehart 2000), and Social Distance Scale (Bogardus 1933). Our sample consisted of 327 highly educated emigrants who responded to an online survey.
Th e results show that our sample characterizes expressed openness to the world, equality  of genders, secular-rational and self-expression values. On the other hand, lower levels of conformism, religiousness, authoritarianism and social distance are detected. Our assumption is that the results obtained may be a consequence of the migrant lifestyle and in this regard are consistent with the new approach in the study of migration – transnationalism.

Academic international mobility is a long-lasting phenomenon and important aim of public policies in numerous countries. Scholarly debate usually concentrates on Western countries and some Eastern Asian scientifi c hubs like Singapore. Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) is understudied. In Poland, the largest CEE country, unlike in many  Western countries, public policies concerning internationalization of the academic fi eld are still under construction. Nevertheless, there is a strong pressure for internationalization. The Polish case to be discussed in this article can serve as an example of academic migration to less economically privileged regions that are usually countries of emigration of scholars rather than immigration. In this paper, by means of qualitative in-depth interviews, we concentrate on the need to invite academics from abroad and the perceptions of the actual presence of foreign scholars, employed full-time, as seen by their Polish supervisors. Geographical focus of this paper (CEE) and adopted  perspective (interviews with heads of departments supported by interviews with academics) bridge the gap in the literature on academic mobility.