• Post-migrant shaping of society: This profile focus looks at the potential for shaping society and the creative influence of various social groups as well as new forms and expressions of agency, including in the context of (post-)migrant agency.
• (Anti-)discrimination and diversity: This focus area examines discrimination with regard to various criteria and forms set out in the General Equal Treatment Act (AGG) and beyond.
• Social movements and protest: The focus here is on the development of concrete, collective social conflicts in the migration society.
• Commitment and flight: This profile focus deals qualitatively and quantitatively with the various forms and facets of engagement for refugees and its significance for attitudes towards refugees in society, as well as the developments of organizational infrastructures in the area of flight and asylum.

• Development of a digital monitoring tool to measure violence and protection against violence in refugee shelters and dissemination and consolidation of the tool in seven federal states(Monitoring and evaluation of protection against violence in refugee shelters: scaling and consolidation, Monitoring of protection against violence in refugee shelters: dissemination, evaluation and consolidation).
• Development and application of racism- and discrimination-sensitive diversity studies for the federal administration(Diversity in the Federal Administration (DiBu), How does diversity get into the office?)
• Development of an internationally unique database for recording local protests and development of an interactive website(www.protestdata.eu), on which scientific data on nationwide protests since 1950 are clearly presented(Local Conflicts about Migration).
• Development of a biographical database with over 5,000 biographies of all German elite positions to measure the extent of the underrepresentation of various social groups and consolidation of the survey instrument in the Elitenmonitor (Soziale Integration ohne Eliten?).

Currently and in the future, the department's research agenda will increasingly focus on internationalization and international comparisons. This includes the global measurement of social rights and the increased inclusion of perspectives from the Global South. At the same time, the further development of critical engagement research, anti-discriminatory organizational research, strategies to combat right-wing extremism and conflict research in the context of hybrid digitalized public spheres will be promoted.