This study was commissioned by the Nuffic, the Netherlands Organization for International Cooperation in Higher Education, to feed into a Nuffic-organised high-level international conference, on the theme “Braingain – the instruments”, held on 29 and 30 September 2004 in The Hague. The conference formed part of the educational programme of the Dutch presidency of the European Union’s Council in the second half of 2004. 

The overarching question this study tackles can be formulated as follows: how will the 2004 EU enlargement impact on migration between the EU-15 countries and the new member states in general, and  how will it impact on the movement of the highly skilled in particular? The study was designed to assess the migration impacts – on the economies, the labour markets and the academic and scientific communities – for the EU-15 countries and the new member states, as well as the Union as a whole. 

This study was produced by Maria Kelo and Bernd Wächter, of the Academic Cooperation Association (ACA), in the first eight months of 2004, and published by Nuffic.