FOLLOW€ Research Project Launches: Two Filipino Nurses Join Almost Half-Million Euro Study

A major new research initiative, FOLLOW€, funded by the KONE Foundation with a budget exceeding 400,000 euros, has officially begun. The project brings together a multidisciplinary team to examine the financial infrastructures underlying international nurse migration- particularly the recruitment of Filipino nurses to Finland. Four Filipinos are part of the project team, including two Filipino nurses, whose contributions are central to the project’s analytical and fieldwork components.

The project is conducted at Migration Institute of Finland (MIF) by a Dynamic and Multidisciplinary Team

Primary Investigator Dr. Tiina Vaittinen – Independent Grant Researcher and CEO of The GoodMess research consultancy, responsible for project leadership and mapping the finances of Finnish public procurement of recruitment services.

Jaakko Jaskari – Producer and Documentary Filmmaker, responsible for producing and shaping the documentary component of the project.

Dr. Floro Cubelo – Post‑doctoral Researcher, Senior Lecturer, and Head of Studies at Oulu University of Applied Sciences.

Doctoral Researcher Margarita Sakilayan‑Latvala – Doctoral Researcher and Senior Lecturer in Social Services at Diaconia University of Applied Sciences (DIAK).

Research Assistant Jam Espada – Registered Nurse and Master’s Degree Programme in Public Mental Health student at Turku University

Dr. Bonn Juego – Senior Lecturer in Political Economy at University of Jyväskylä, offering expertise on global labor markets and structural inequalities.

Doctoral Researcher Isla Arnivaara – Doctoral Researcher whose role in the project is to examine the macro-level financial flows

Dr. Linda Bäckman – Senior Researcher at the Migration Institute of Finland, specializing in multilingualism, identity, migration, and integration studies.

Investigative Journalist Jani Kaaro – who brings to the project methodical skills from investigative journalism

Research Assistant Emmi Lahtivuori – Master’s Degree Programme in Sociology, Tampere University

Two Filipino nurses join the core research group:

Dr. Floro Cubelo – Registered Nurse, Post‑doctoral researcher, Senior Lecturer, and Head of Studies in the Degree Programme in Nursing at Oulu University of Applied Sciences.

Jam Espada – Registered Nurse and Master’s Degree Programme in Public Mental Health student at Turku University.

Both will focus on Work Package 2, led collaboratively by Dr. Cubelo and Doctoral Researcher Sakilayan‑Latvala, which examines the lived realities and financial processes embedded in nurse migration.

What FOLLOW€ Seeks to Uncover

The international migration of nurses- and the recruitment systems that facilitate it- is shaped by interconnected economic layers that influence national economies, family livelihoods, and public health systems in both sending and receiving countries. The recruitment of Filipino nurses to Finland illustrates how these dynamics operate in practice.

Previous research has shed light on the political and postcolonial conditions of these recruitment systems, revealing extensive networks of actors who invest in and benefit from linking Filipino nurses to Finnish labor markets. However, the financial routes and monetary exchanges that sustain these recruitment processes- complex, transnational, and often opaque- have yet to be thoroughly and systematically mapped.

The FOLLOW€ project directly addresses this gap. By conducting a multi‑layered follow‑the‑money analysis, FOLLOW€ investigates the financial flows associated with the migration and frequent deskilling of Filipino nurses recruited to Finland. Alongside academic publications, the project will produce a feature‑length documentary film, making the research accessible beyond academic audiences.

Through this blend of research and documentary storytelling, FOLLOW€ not only traces where money flows but also explores how researchers can follow money as it moves through the evolving transnational systems of labor recruitment.

While the project will reveal exploitative patterns and systemic inequalities, its goal is not exposure for exposure’s sake. Instead, by identifying the power relations and financial interests that shape current recruitment models, FOLLOW€ aims to open pathways toward more ethical, just, and antiracist approaches to international nurse recruitment- approaches that uphold dignity, promote fairness, and strengthen the integrity of both migration and care systems (1).

Reference:

1. KONE Foundation. (2025). Follow the money… to the land of milk and honey? Tracing the transnational political economies of nurse migration from the Philippines to Finland. Kone Foundation. https://koneensaatio.fi/en/grants-and-residencies/follow-the-money-to-the-land-of-milk-and-honey-tracing-the-transnational-political-economies-of-nurse-migration-from-the-philippines-to-finland-2/