The method, published before the number.

The research programme exists to describe, with evidence, how capital, skill and obligation move between diaspora communities and the markets they are connected to. It is journalism and social research, not market analysis produced for a client.

Its purpose is descriptive and explanatory: to establish what the frictions are, how they are distributed, and how they change. It does not exist to promote any market, institution, product or asset class, and it produces no recommendation to invest.

Respondents will be recruited through open registration on this site, through professional and community networks, and through partner institutions who circulate an invitation without seeing who responds or what they say.

Recruitment is self-selecting. Nobody is enrolled automatically, no list is purchased, and registering interest does not enrol anyone in fieldwork — a separate invitation and a separate consent step are required.

The initial samples will be non-probability convenience samples. They cannot be treated as nationally representative of any diaspora population, and no weighting scheme can fully correct that.

Known biases include over-representation of professionals with strong online and institutional networks, of English-language respondents, and of people already interested in cross-border investment. Under-representation of lower-income, undocumented and older respondents is expected.

Every published figure will carry the sample size, the fieldwork window, the recruitment route and an explicit statement of these limitations. Where a subgroup is too small to report responsibly, it will not be reported.

Financial questions are asked in bands, never as exact figures. We do not ask for exact income, exact wealth, account numbers, account balances, transaction records, identity documents or financial statements, and we never request supporting documentation.

We ask about behaviour, experience, perceived barriers and intent — for example how transfers are made, what has been attempted, what failed, and what would need to change.

Every financial and demographic question is optional. A respondent can complete the research instrument without answering any of them.

Participation is voluntary, explicitly consented and separate from any other relationship with Beyond Home. Consent is obtained before the first research question is asked, with a plain-language explanation of purpose, use and retention.

A respondent may stop at any point without submitting, and may withdraw a submitted response by writing to us, provided it has not yet been irreversibly aggregated into a published dataset. We will always say clearly when that point has been reached.

Fieldwork is closed at the time of writing. No research responses are being collected through this site.

We collect the minimum necessary to answer the research question. Contact details are stored separately from research responses, and analysis is performed on de-identified data.

Data is held on managed infrastructure with access restricted to the research team. Partners, sponsors and advisers never receive individual-level data under any circumstances.

Contact details for the register of interest are retained until a person unsubscribes. De-identified research responses are retained for the life of the research programme; identifiable material is deleted once analysis is complete.

Findings are published in aggregate only, with method, sample and limitations set out alongside the numbers. Nothing that could identify an individual respondent is published.

Where we are uncertain, we say so. Estimates are labelled as estimates. Corrections are issued openly and dated, in line with the editorial charter.

Participants receive the aggregate findings before general publication.

The index is intended as a composite of nine dimensions covering transfer cost, currency volatility, convertibility, repatriation, credit portability, regulatory predictability, investment protection, digital financial infrastructure and investor confidence.

Each dimension will draw on a documented mix of public data and survey-derived measures, normalised on a stated scale, with source, vintage and coverage published for every input.

Weightings have not been fixed. They will be set through a documented process including practitioner review, tested for sensitivity, and published together with the results of that testing. Where a market lacks sufficient data, it will be shown as not scored rather than estimated.

No score has been calculated or published. The full methodology, including weights and sources, will be published before any score is released.