Academic and public debates on the migration-development nexus often raise the question whether and in what ways social scientific research may form a basis for rational political decisions. The main thesis of this article is that such questions are misleading. Social scientific research may instead offer crucial stimuli for describing, understanding and explaining the migration-development nexus. This means that sociological analysis of the theory-praxis link should go beyond the focus on research and policy and bring in much more forcefully social scientists’ role in the public sphere.