Polish Contemporary Migration: From Co-migrants to Project ME Jakub Isa nski*, Agata Mleczko** and Renata Seredy nska-Abou Eid** ABSTRACT International migration mirrors contemporary society in all its complexity. What has not chan- ged for centuries is the principal motif: people leave their country of origin hoping for a better life. Poland has a long history of emigration: Poles have been migrating for more than 200 years for political, economic and social reasons. In recent decades, Polish migration pat- terns have undergone dramatic changes. Using online survey data, this article explores new trends in Polish migration since the country’s accession to the European Union in 2004. The survey was focused on Polish migrants who stayed abroad for some time, those who stayed abroad before the accession, those who returned to Poland or those who experienced multiple travels and have an ongoing migration project. We conclude that new trends have emerged among Polish migrants. Contemporary migrants are aware of the benefits related to migration and are capable of implementing their migration project quite skilfully. Their high susceptibility to the economic setting proves their flexibility. Polish migrants highly value their new lifestyle abroad and consider friends their most impor- tant source of support. INTRODUCTION Although migration movements are not new – people have been moving around for centuries – there are some particular features that make contemporary migration a very complex phenomenon. Polish migrants are a good example of a recent shift: from a relatively small group of self-selected people who treated migration as an escape from the oppressive system of the past, towards a more democratic and voluntary movement characterized by individual decisions and high expectations of multiple benefits stemming from migration. Pre-1989 migration is described in literature as a forced migration due to the introduction of the communist regime after World War II (D€ uvell and Garap- ich, 2011) and the hostility of the government towards the members of the Polish army corps who remained abroad after the war. Many of the post war exiles resided in the US and in the UK; how- ever, some migrated to Canada, France and Australia. In the past, especially before the 1989 turn from the communist regime to democracy, Polish migrants aimed at long-term settlement in a host country, which frequently resulted in the acquisition of citizenship. 1 Today, Poles are highly mobile, often travel to more than one country and are focused on gaining new experiences and acquiring new skills rather than on permanent emigration. One of the main issues explored in this research is related to the dynamics of the contemporary migration of Poles. In 2008, in literature and in the media there were reports of the mass return of Poles * University of Adam Mickiewicz, Poznan, Poland. ** University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK. doi: 10.1111/imig.12076 © 2013 The Authors Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd., International Migration © 2013 IOM 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK, International Migration and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA. ISSN 0020-7985