Viktor Marsai

Viktor Marsai, PhD, is the Director of the Budapest-based Migration Research Institute and Fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies. He received his first degree from Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, in history and aesthetics. He earned his second degree in security and defense policy from the Miklós Zrínyi National Defense University in 2010. Marsai completed his PhD at the ELU Doctoral School of History in 2014, with a dissertation on the Somali state building efforts.

From 2010-2011, Marsai worked for the Hungarian Ministry of Defense. Between 2012-2016, he worked for the National University of Public Service, first as junior lecturer, later as assistant and associate professor. In 2017 he won the János Bolyai Research Scholarship of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. He started at the Migration Research Institute in 2017, became research director in 2019, and director in 2022. His main research areas focused on the migration trends of the African continent and the security aspects of migration.

During a research fellowship at CIS in 2023, he focused on the comparative analysis of the American and European migration policies and the role of gatekeeper countries to mitigate the flow of illegal mass migration.