Migration—along with the various factors influencing it, its representations in politics and mass media—has become a central theme not only in scholarly projects but also in public discourse and policy making. This is certainly not without precedent as the movement of people has always been intertwined with the history of the world and more specifically our region as an area shaped by emigration, immigration, and internal migration to a great extent. Most recently, the discussion of the topic took central stage in Central and Eastern Europe in 2015 with the “refugee/migration crisis” and has been in the focus of attention ever since. A few years earlier, in 2012, our Center for International Migration Studies (CIMS) was established at the Faculty of Humanities, University of Debrecen (UD), based on the initiative of István Kornél Vida. Its stated mission was to bring together people doing research in the broadly defined field of migration studies, establishing an interdisciplinary research center that offers a forum for sharing results in publications and at conferences, integrating these into the teaching portfolio of the university, as well as facilitating the building of a research network related to var ious projects. It was founded on the idea that collaboration reaching across disciplinary boundaries can provide novel and valuable insights into the history of migration, can help preserve its heritage, while also contributing to the better understanding of current events.The Center has been working over the past twelve years to try and meet the initial objectives and now its members include scholars from as varied fields as history, sociology, cultural and literary studies, linguistics, area studies (most prominently American, Dutch, German, and Italian Studies), law, and geography. The Center has offered numerous university courses in Hungarian and in English in a great variety of topics, providing a better understanding of the past and present of international migration to hundreds of students. This was also accompanied by the first publication of the center in 2021 (Migráció tegnap és ma [Migration past and present], eds. Réka Bozzay and László Pete), which related to numerous topics discussed in these courses and helped students gain a deeper understanding of the themes presented in lectures. To enhance international collaboration, several conferences have also been organized, most recently in 2024 on the 100th anniversary of the Johnson–Reed Immigration Act in the United States with scholars participating from twelve countries. In line with this, and as the next step, the Center now wishes to focus even more on internationalization both in research and publication.