The Migration Institute awards the ‘John Morton Prize’ to Timo Aro for his significant work in the field of migration

The Board of the Migration Institute has awarded the 2020 John Morton Award to Timo Aro, MDI’s leading expert. Recognition is given annually for a very meritorious work or work done in Finland for the benefit of migration and multiculturalism. The award has been given since 2010.

“Receiving the John Morton Prize is a great recognition personally, but an even greater honor for research and multidisciplinary research related to internal migration. Migration is often the underlying factor that affects everywhere and everything at the international, national, regional and local levels” says Timo Aro.

Aro’s main research interests relate to regional and demographic development, particularly migration research, for which he has submitted his academic dissertations and written major scientific articles. He has also published extensively on related topics and served as an expert on various regional and urban development advisory boards and chambers. In recent years, Aro has worked to support Finnish regions and knowledge-based regional development, e.g. by being involved in building the MDI Information Service.

Aro has been recognised as a national expert on regional and demographic development as well as future demographic development and forecasting. He often appears in the media as an expert on demographic and migration affairs and is an active social influencer and debater on regional and demographic issues, as well as an active Twitter user with nearly 10 000 followers. Aro’s tweets place particular emphasis on illustrative and visualised maps of migration, demographic development and regional development in Finland in general.