Monforte, who was born in France, earned a PhD from the European University Institute in Florence and was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Montreal. Now at UIC Barcelona, he is a lecturer on the Bachelor’s Degree in Primary Education, specifically in the subject of Teaching and Learning the Social Sciences. He also teaches on the Master's Degree in Teacher Training for Secondary and Upper-Secondary Education, specifically in the field of Sociology of the Family.

The lecturer’s primary area of research is political sociology, with a particular focus on social movements. His most significant and recognised study to date is the publication of the book Europeanizing Contention: The Protest Against ‘Fortress Europe’ in France and Germany, in 2014, where the author makes a comparative analysis of the pro-refugee movements in France and Germany since the late 1990s, framed within the context of the well-known refugee crisis in Europe in 2015.

Monforte’s most recent research specifically examines the role of volunteers. His in-depth analysis concludes that people who begin their altruistic work from a humanitarian perspective, with a willingness to help with survival tasks, eventually evolve towards a more political stance, developing a critical perspective on migration and border policies.

Another research project by the investigator highlights the financial burden for a person with few resources to migrate to countries such as the United Kingdom, where the costs of obtaining citizenship can exceed €2,000 per person. In the context of the new EU Pact on Migration and Asylum adopted in 2024, which establishes more comprehensive border controls for migrants, the expert warns of the danger this poses to asylum seekers: “Migration is a phenomenon that does not stop with more restrictive laws. People fleeing their land take more dangerous paths that, in the worst-case scenario, lead to more deaths,” says the sociologist in an interview at UIC Barcelona.  “Asylum seekers find themselves in an increasingly vulnerable situation, struggling to obtain refugee status,” he adds.

From an economic point of view, Monforte also calls the stricter laws “counterproductive,” since the implementation of the measures they enact is extremely costly for countries, according to the expert. “There is no immigration invasion, but the phenomenon has become an electoral tool in recent years, where the most conservative and far-right parties have advanced in the polls through their discourse,” he adds. According to the expert, “All studies indicate that putting more obstacles in the process does not stop migration.”

For Monforte, there is no “openly favourable opposition to migration in most European countries”, and this contributes to the growing visibility of more radical political opinions. One of the practices that governments are carrying out, according to the expert, is “to delegate more power to external agents such as hospitals, real estate agencies or banks that hinder the access of migrants to essential services,” he says.

As Germany approaches its general elections, with immigration taking a prominent place in the candidates' speeches, Monforte regrets that such a complex issue is being “politicised”. “The open-border policy that allowed more than a million Syrian refugees into the country in 2015 shows that there are alternatives to harsher control policies,” concludes Pierre Monforte.