5. Our impact strategy recognizes that journalism is one part of helping to drive systemic change. Our strategy seeks to connect with policymakers, academics and CSOs to build a coalition. Access our data here purl.stanford.edu/vv199dn8443 thanks to @biglocalnews.bsky.social

4. Our evolving editorial objectives and impact goals were in constant conversation as we conducted the investigation and enabled us to stay focused on why we were doing the investigation in the first place and maximize our potential contribution to solutions.

3. Systematic failures are gnarly and nuanced. Publico is a collaborative partner that was aligned with our impact goals. We agreed to multimedia content that brings readers into the lives of migrants and accessible data explainers that help audiences understand the scale of the issue.

2. We wanted audiences to realize the economic potential of more inclusive approaches to migration. A statistical model estimates the economic cost to show brain waste harms professional migrants themselves and national economies that fail at integrating these professionals into the labor force.

1. We wanted to find a mainstream, centrist audience that would not otherwise know about potential value of migrants to society. France 3, the third most watched television station, got us outside of our media bubble. We invested in relationships to create new alliances outside of the echo chamber.

After each part of the series, I’ve shared lessons learned. For Part 1, I focused on how we built and refined our data pipeline. In part 2 I explained how we prioritized the people over the numbers. For Part 3, I a, sharing how our impact strategy shaped our investigative approach.