In the medium-scale collaborative project with partners inside and outside the EU, scientific institutes with the capacities to conduct sound investigations will cooperate with worldwide active international health service organisations which have information and global links for research on international mobility. General objective is to research on current trends of mobility of health professionals to, from and within the EU. Research will also be conducted in Non-European sending and receiving countries, but the focus lies on the EU: comparative studies in a selected range of representative states will determine the impact of different types of migration on national health systems. An innovative approach will generate more comparable, specified and qualified data gathered by mainly qualitative research and aims for quantities of migration flows as well as detailed qualities like professions, motives, circumstances and the social context, i.e. push and pull factors. Crucial for the approach are key stakeholders which represent the relevant categories in national health systems to collect existing data and statistics, but first of all to generate new, qualitative data. In-depth interviews based on thematic guidelines with representatives of key stakeholders enable a triangulation of data, i.e. the expertise on health professionals´ mobility and its impact on structures and processes of health systems will qualify the quantitative findings and explore what mobility means for the health system and the persons and organisations involved. The project’s policy dimension comprises recommendations on human resource policies in European and third countries for policy and decision makers on the basis of sound empirical research with conceptual frameworks for monitoring systems concerning the mobility of health workers as a key part. Consultation meetings and roundtables with policymakers will be essential in the project.