An article co-authored by our researchers was presented at the International Labour Process Conference (ILPC) 2026, held at Leeds University Business School from 23rd to 25th April 2025. The paper, titled “Educational Institutions in the Service of Transnational Migration? Cases of Slovenia and Bosnia and Herzegovina”, was presented by colleague Maja Breznik from the Peace Instutite, Slovenia. The article was co-authored by Maja Breznik, Nermin Oruč, Veronika Bajt, Amela Kurta, and Katerina Kočkovska Šetinc.
The research examines higher education institutions as an important factor facilitating international labour migration. Drawing on the concept of the education–migration nexus, it shows how universities increasingly act as channels of labour mobility in Slovenia and Bosnia and Herzegovina within an emerging transnational migration regime. Based on a combination of statistical data, contextual analysis, and interviews, the findings indicate that educational institutions have aligned with migration policies to address internal challenges, such as declining enrolment in Slovenia and limited labour market absorption capacity in Bosnia and Herzegovina. At the same time, these linkages reveal problematic outcomes: international students are often incorporated into precarious labour arrangements, including exploitation in low-wage sectors in Slovenia, while in Bosnia and Herzegovina higher education systems contribute to the production of a workforce destined for foreign labour markets. In this way, the paper offers both a theoretical contribution and new empirical insights into the education–migration nexus, focusing on two Western periphery countries that have been largely overlooked in existing research.
This research was funded by the European Commission (Project number: 101126535) under the project Sustainable and Socially Just Transnational Sectoral Labour Markets: Industrial Relations and Labour Market Adjustment to the Rise in Temporary Labour Migration (JUSTMIG).