The African Centre for Migration & Society (ACMS) at the University of the Witwatersrand is an independent, interdisciplinary, and internationally engaged Africa-based centre of excellence for research and teaching that shapes global discourse on human mobility, development, and social transformation. The ACMS is one of the continent's leading institutions for research, teaching, and outreach on migration.

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The ACMS offers an Honours, MA and PhD programme that attracts students from within South Africa, the southern African region, and beyond. Research at the ACMS fits within five broad and intersecting themes. Each of these includes multiple projects, often involving doctoral and master’s students and partners based outside of Wits University:

• Considering communities of difference

• Governing Mobility in Southern African Cities

• Illness, Boundaries, and Health Systems

• Migrant rights and the social life of law

• Mobility labour and livelihoods

ACMS is part of the seven-year research programme consortium (RPC) 'Migrating out of Poverty', funded by the UK's Department for International Development, and focusing on the relationship between internal and regional migration and poverty in six regions across Asia, Africa, and Europe (coordinated by the University of Sussex). ACMS hosts the South African Research Chair in Mobility and the Politics of Difference, held by Prof. Loren Laundau and the migration and health project in Southern Africa (maHp), funded by a Welcome Trust Investigator Award held by Prof. Jo Vearey.

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Other projects include a three-year Mellon Foundation-funded project on ‘Governing Morality, Migration, Sexuality, and Gender’, an oral history project 'Whose Country is it Anyway? Telling Transformation & Xenophobia,' and participation in studies funded by Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity’s Super-Diversity South Africa Project.​

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The EMMIR Programme is in line with the mission of Wits University, which is to grow its global stature as a leading research-intensive university and to be a gateway to research engagement and intellectual achievement in Africa. It achieves this by building on the principles of intellectual excellence, international competitiveness and local relevance. As an institution built on principles of intellectual excellence, it is committed to providing high-quality, internationally competitive education, founded on high academic standards, cutting-edge research, public engagement, and productive partnerships with leading institutions throughout the world. In 2010, the University developed the Wits Vision 2022 Strategic Framework to achieve this aforementioned vision. This was guided by an extensive consultation process, allowing various internal and external stakeholders an opportunity to contribute. Wits is globally vaunted for its academic and research excellence. That it is a world-class university is evident in its ranking in the past years as well as in 2026 as one of the two leading universities in the country and on the continent. This legacy of excellence has to be nurtured, sustained and eventually surpassed in the next years. The Wits Vision 2022 Strategic Framework articulates a vision that elevates Wits’ position as one of the internationally leading research-intensive universities and a gateway to knowledge and understanding in Africa. It provides the overarching framework for more detailed plans based on current imperatives and will shape strategic thinking during the respective planning cycles. 

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The specific expertise that the African Centre for Migration and Society (ACMS) at Wits contributes to EMMIR (particularly during the IP and in their third-semester focus module) covers areas such as the migration labour nexus and questions of migration and psychosocial health. Staff from Wits involved in EMMIR have extensive experience in teaching and research in these fields. Core teaching and academic leadership are provided by Prof. Dr. Jo Vearey, Co-Director of ACMS, whose work focuses on migration, health and urban inequality; Dr John Marnell, EMMIR focal point and academic coordinator at Wits, contributes expertise in queer and trans displacement, border regimes and research methods; Prof. Loren Landau, SARChI Research Chair in Mobility and the Politics of Difference, brings in-depth theoretical and comparative perspectives on migration governance, belonging and urban politics in the Global South and coordinates. Additional supervisions are provided by Dr Jean-Pierre Misago, whose research focuses on xenophobia, violence and the governance of migration and Dr Langelihle Mlotshwa, a public health scholar working on migration, urbanisa¬tion and sexual and reproductive health. EMMIR students hosted at Wits consistently report outstanding learning, research and professional development experiences. ACMS very successfully runs an MA in Migration Studies, attracting students from all over the continent and beyond. As a centre of excellence, it also has a large number of PhD candidates and is running numerous migration research projects, funded nationally and internationally. EMMIR students, who have been hosted and supervised for their internships and theses in this environment, have reported about their outstanding learning and research experiences.