the outcomes of Greece's investments are unsettling and nourish further the human rights discourse with which they are intertwined. Within this wider debate, the MIDAS project seeks to contribute to the existing discussions by evaluating for the first the time the Greek policies through the lens of their cost-effectiveness. By measuring the human and material resources invested in the management of irregular migration within the time frame of 2008-2013, the MIDAS project discusses three crucial questions: 1. How much do irregular migration control policies in Greece actually cost? 2. Are current policies cost-effective, when compared against their outputs and outcomes? 3. Are there any alternative policy recommendations that could be more cost-effective? The MIDAS project aspires to further discussions on irregular migration policies at both the national and wider EU- level by sharing new knowledge and expanding the debate. The project constitutes the first major effort to bring together the diverse operational measures undertaken by Greece to manage irregular migration within the period 2008-2013; it is the first major initiative to calculate the actual cost of these policies, feeding new data to the present debate. Finally, it opens the floor for a broader discussion by providing its own review of Greece's migration policy through a new lens, that of cost-effectiveness. Methodology MIDAS is a 10-month project carried out by the ELIAMEP Migration Team between JanuaryOctober 2014. Research-wise it focuses on the period from 2008 to 2013, when a significant number of policy changes took place. In the absence of previous studies on the cost-effectiveness of Greece' migration policy, much time and energy was spent to gather information that were fragmented or simply unavailable. Once all main funding schemes of Greece's migration policy had been identified, we contacted all of Greece's main sponsors to gather the necessary data and at a second level, discuss the outcomes with key stakeholders. We worked primarily on the basis of written requests for information (and follow up interviews), in order to secure the accuracy of the figures provided. These were normally divided as follows: (a) cataloguing (list of operations/measures undertaken in the period 2008-2013), (b) costs (human and material resources deployed, expenditures), (c)direct outputs and outcomes (statistics on detainees, asylum claims, returns, apprehensions) and (d) evaluation (questions addressing effectiveness of measures against costs and in the overall Greek context). In terms of our sources, stakeholders at both a national and European level were contacted, with the understanding that Greece's migration management of the period 2008-2013 was not only the outcome of national policy-making but also in line with the EU approach towards irregular migration. At a national level the primary contact reference was the Police Headquarters of the Ministry of Citizens Protection and in particular the Aliens Directorate, Department of Migration Page 13