International Highly Skilled Migration: The Case of Finland: An Introduction

Driss Habti, Doctor in Social Sciences, is a post-doctoral researcher in sociology at the University of Eastern Finland. He did his doctoral research on highly skilled mobility to Finland and migration from the Arab world. He is currently working on a research project funded by Kone Foundation, looking into career mobility of Russian healthcare professionals in Finland. His main research interests lie in the sociology of global highly skilled migration, career research, cultural diversity, and ethnicity. He has published international journal articles, funded by the Academy of Finland, on issues of highly skilled migration, the internationalization of higher education, and cultural diversity. He also published a book on modernity and tradition in Arab-Islamic thought and co-edited a journal special issue on international highly skilled migration.

Saara Koikkalainen, Doctor in Social Sciences, has been a researcher in Spatial Citizenship in European Labour Markets project funded by Academy of Finland at the University of Lapland, Finland. Her doctoral research in sociology focuses on the mobility of skilled labor in the European Union, especially on transferring cultural capital. During her doctoral studies, she has been a Fulbright Visiting Student Researcher (2010) and a Gifford Center Visiting Scholar (2010–11) at the University of California, Davis, and a Visiting Student (2012) at the European University Institute. Her recent publications include “Europe is My Oyster” (2009), a refereed article on the labor market experiences of Finns abroad; “Free Movement: Past and Present” (2011), an analysis of the EU free-movement regime; “Welfare or Work: Migrants’ Selective Integration in Finland,” a co-authored chapter in an edited volume on “Migration and Welfare in the ‘New’ Europe” (Policy Press, 2011), and a chapter titled “Highly Skilled Finns in European Labour Market: Why Do They Move Abroad?” in a book that she co-edited with Elli Heikkilä (Finns Abroad: New Forms of Mobility and Migration, 2011, Institute of Migration).