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ПРОБЛЕМЫ ВЫСШЕГО ОБРАЗОВАНИЯ
RUFFINI Pierre-Brun о
BRAIN MOBILITY AND THE BUILDING OF A GLOBAL KNOWLEDGE SOCIETY
This presentation deals with the issue of brain mobility in the context of the global economy. It was made at a symposium dedicated to the status and perspectives of higher education development in the contemporary world. This reflection on the topic of brain mobility (in the narrow sense of international migrations of scientists and researchers) finds its place in discussions about higher education, to which it is connected in the following way: brain mobility affects national endowments of human capital, increasing their stock (and probably, their average quality) in brain-importing countries, and reducing them in brain-exporting countries. As scientists and researchers are often part-time professors or PhD supervisors, brain circulation has an impact on educational inputs. In this way, brain circulation and higher education are connected.
In this paper, we will first put forward definitions (1), then give some facts about brain mobility (2) and set this issue in the context of the globalization of the economy (3), analyze some of the consequences of the brain drain (4), turn to public policies (5) before concluding (6).
I - Brain mobility: brain drain, brain circulation
This paper deals with some aspects of international migrations and international mobility of human capital, that is, “brain mobility”. Broadly speaking, “brain” refers to highly skilled workers, who hold a higher education degree. We will here address a subset of these talented workers and focus on those who are engaged in research activity: research fellows, scientists, R&D professionals, PhD students ... They are “brains” in a narrower sense. We speak of “brain mobility” when they move from one country to another.
A widely discussed aspect of brain mobility is “brain drain”. It seems that the expression was coined by the British Royal Society to describe the flow of scientists from various countries to the United States and Canada in the 1950s and early 1960s. Brain drain normally means that expatriates settle in the host country on a permanent basis. Brain drain is generally considered as a source of imbalance at the global level, as some countries are net brain exporters, whereas some others are net brain importers.
“Brain drain” has been for long referred to as a major aspect of the global picture of science. The wording “brain circulation” is more recent. Brain circulation (or brain exchange) refers to temporary migrations (foreign doctoral and post-doctoral students, visiting scholars, temporary assignment of scientists in another country.). Although not fairly balanced across countries, brain circulation is considered positively as a beneficial practice for both home and host countries. On the contrary, the negative aspects of brain drain (loss of human capital for exporting countries) are very often put forward (see below).
II - Some facts and figures about brain drain
Although there is a voluminous literature on migrations, it is almost impossible to draw a fair worldwide picture of long-term migrations of the highly skilled. Migrations are not
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systematically covered by international statistics, and internationally comparable data on migrations of the highly skilled are incomplete. We gather here some basic statistics in order to illustrate the approximate importance of brain drain.
China. According to the government, 1,62 million Chinese went to study in the foreign universities from 1978 to 2009 but only 460 000 came back for working in their mother country. There are approximately 60 000 China-born PhD degree holders in the United States but hardly 20 000 PhD degree holders in Chinese public research institutions.
Russia. The country has lost on average 2 200 researchers every year in the first half of the1990s, but the brain outflow has steeply diminished since the early 2000s. The Russian scientific diaspora is made of some 30 000 researchers (but the internal brain drain - from science to more rewarding sectors of the economy - is said to be10 times bigger). The Russian scientific diaspora is located mainly in the United States (one third), Germany, the United Kingdom, and to a lesser extent in France.
Italy. According to governmental estimates 50 000 master degree holders leave the country every year. 54 scientists of the Top 100 Italian scientists listing (ranked from to the number of prizes, publications and quotations) are working abroad on a permanent basis.
France. The number of expatriate French researchers is estimated between 1 000 and 2 000. 1,3 % of the total of French researchers were exiled in the United States in 2 000. Some 2 % of French doctoral students receive their PhD in the United States.
Less developed countries. Generally speaking, migrants from developing countries are more likely to stay in the host country than migrants from advanced countries. According to UNCTAD, 30 to 50 percent of the developing world’s population who is trained in science and technology already live in the developed world. OECD countries host 13 millions of skilled workers originating from LDC, and up to one third of R&D professionals from the developing world are believed to reside in OECD area. According to the World Bank, each year 70 000 highly skilled Africans emigrate to Europe and United States.
The United States of America are the major destination country for brain drain. According to the OECD, since the early 1990s more than 1 million of highly skilled professionals (mainly information-technology workers) from India, China, Russia and a few OECD countries (including Canada, the UK and Germany) have migrated to the United States under the H1B temporary visa program. About one third of permanent resident population holding a doctoral degree in science and engineering is foreign born. The permanent resident population of foreigners holding a doctoral degree distributes as follows: Chinese 20%; Indian 16%; British 7%; German 4%; French 1%.
III - “Global” versus “national” in today science
In this text, we analyze brain drain and brain circulation as expressions of the competition among nations for attracting highly qualified human capital in order to boost the production of knowledge and strengthen their R&D system. Several points have to be cleared first.
1 - What should be understood by “production of knowledge”, “production of science”? Let’s look first to the production function of scientific knowledge. For the purpose of this paper, dedicated to the international mobility of professional researchers, we consider that the output of knowledge and science can be measured with the number of publications in j ournals which comply by international standards. This is a conventional way of assessing academic research. The number of patents hold by scientists is a complementary indicator of scientific output, which emphasizes the transfer of scientific results in the field of applied research and innovation.
The great bulk of scientific knowledge belongs to the category of “public goods”, that is, non-marketable and access-free assets. Exceptions are to be found in the field of private corporate research and research with security and defense implications.
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Turning to the factors of production of scientific knowledge, we consider the following inputs: equipment and research infrastructures (tangible assets); the stock of existing knowledge (intangible assets); the stock of skilled labor (“brain”, “grey cells”...). The scientific output is generally considered as highly labor-intensive.
2 - The dual nature of science (or more generally, the dual nature of research activity) must be emphasized.
Science, by its very essence, has a global nature. Science addresses issues of general interest. As Anton Chekhov pointed, “ there is no national science, just as there is no national multiplication table; what is national is no longer science”. For this reason, scientific issues are taken in consideration and discussed regardless of the national origin of heir authors. The scientific community has for long organized itself at a global scale: transnational peer review committees, use of English as « lingua franca » of research exchanges and publications. More recently, the worldwide use of information and communication technologies has lessened the importance of geographical borders and transport constraints.
But if science is global per se, the organization of scientific production remains national. Research units are located on national territories, and this means that the legal and social environment of researchers is ruled nationally. Last but not least, public research is mainly fund from national budgets. Exceptions are to be found in the European Union, which budgets fund approximately 15% of the total of research spending of member States. Multinational research infrastructures such as ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) or CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) are other exceptions.
Many reasons explain why national frames remain so important in the production of scientific knowledge. Economic reasons come first: investment in knowledge (education, research, innovation) is recognized today as a major factor of economic growth in the long run. There are also military reasons, which lead to huge investments in nuclear and space sciences. Political and diplomatic reasons should not be forgotten: science is a major component of the so called soft power, as a source of influence that can be used to support foreign policy (science diplomacy).
The understanding of science issues at the global level requires taking into account the tension between science as an universal and intangible asset, and science as a playing field for countries which want to draw the best of it for national purposes. As Chris Freeman, the father of the “national innovation” system concept, pointed: “Policies for science and technology must always be a mixture of realism and idealism ”. Science should aim at improving the welfare of mankind, and this is idealism. But science should also serve national interests, and this belongs to realism.
The brain drain issue is an excellent illustration. National systems compete for attracting the best international students and the best scientific talents.
IV - Brain mobility and competition among Nations
Costs and benefits of brain mobility and migration of talents is a hotly debated topic. From a global perspective, international mobility of skilled and talented workers is positive. Skilled labor (as any productive input) should be allocated to places in the world where it can generate the highest scientific return. At a global scale, this would allow for the most efficient use of the total amount of available “brain” resources.
From a national perspective, however, the picture is quite different: brain-importing countries are winners (“brain gain”), while brain-exporting countries suffer a loss (“brain drain”).
The contribution of foreign skilled workers to economic growth in recipient countries is widely recognized. This has been extensively documented in the United States, which is the first destination for mobile brains. 27 out the 87 American Nobel Prize winners in medicine and physiology
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between 1901 and 2005 were bom outside the US. In 2004, 45% of PhD physicists working in the United States were foreign born. When analyzing international trade, statisticians calculate the import content of domestic output (and also the import content of exports), that is, the share of imported raw materials or intermediate goods in the final value of what a country produces (and exports). Similarly, it could be interesting to assess the contribution of foreign-born scientists to domestic scientific production: this “brain-import content” of scientific publications could help to measure the scientific benefits drawn by target countries of brain mobility.
Negative effects dominate in brain-exporting countries. They have to face sunk costs, as the initial public spending in primary, secondary and higher education does not generate any return for the home country of emigrants. And brain emigration makes highly skilled human capital more scarce in the country, which is an economic loss as human is considered as a key factor for economic development. However, some economists point to possible positive effects of brain drain according to the following argument: the possibility of migrating to a richer country is a strong incentive to get education; but as not all the highly educated ones will be able to go abroad, the home country will profit by this surplus of highly skilled manpower, that could partly offset the negative effects of brain drain.
V - Can public policies fight brain drain?
Highly skilled migrants tend generally to move to countries offering higher incomes and better standards of living. Brain drain is deeply rooted to the existence of economic and social discrepancies among countries. Due to cumulative effects, brain drain tends to enlarge the gap between brain-exporting and brain-importing countries: it increases in the former the quantity and average quality of human capital, with the opposite effect in the latter. Against this background, reducing development inequalities between countries seems to be the most appropriate way for diminishing the size and scope of brain drain. In particular, enhancing the overall environment of research activity in brain-exporting countries, by increasing the public spending in R&D, can reduce the incentives to emigration. But such efforts can only bring positive results in the long run. Countries tend generally to design policy measures directly aiming at reduce the negative effects of brain drain in the medium term.
There are two main categories of policies:
1 - Taking advantage of the scientific diaspora
Countries with an important diaspora of scientists and researchers can try to tap on these resources for supporting the domestic development of science. Illustrations are given by Russia and Italy. In both countries, the core idea is to use the national diaspora as a stimulus and to favor beneficial spillover effects in the home country.
Russia. Within the framework of the federal targeted program «Formation and scientific research: executives for innovative Russia on 2009-2013», the Russian government has decided to finance every year100 projects of invitation of researchers belonging to the Russian diaspora. Invited scholars are asked to stay and work in Russia for at least two months per year, during which they must organize research seminars and supervise the scientific activity of junior researchers. Selected projects receive a 2 million ruble allocation per year; half of this amount can be used for rewarding the foreign project manager.
Italy. In April 2102, the Italian government has launched an interactive platform (innovitalia.net) with the objective of facilitating the networking of Italian researchers and innovators wherever they are located in the world. Based on crowdsourcing, this platform should allow R&D activity in Italy to be pulled by the most dynamic components of the scientific diaspora.
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2 - Attracting emigrant researchers back to their home country
Examples are to be found, for instance, in China, in Italy, in France and in the United Kingdom.
China. In order to reduce the number of Chinese students at master’s degree or doctorate level who do not return to China after graduating abroad, the government decided in 2007 to compel them to do so at the end of their program in order to avoid paying off their school fees and be fined at the level of 30 % of their grant. This regulation however applies only to government grant holders (only 4 % of Chinese students studying abroad). China designed also the 100 Talent program in the mid 1990’s, with the aim of having 1 300 Chinese expatriates back home. Another program is in progress (2010-2020): the Recruitment Program of Global Experts (also named 1000 Talents) aims at attracting back home thousands of Chinese expatriates, but also at attracting foreign experts to China. Scholars but also technical experts and managerial experts are looked for in the frame of this program. Almost three thousands persons had been welcome through this plan by the end of 2012.
France. In 2009, the national Research Agency launched a «Postdoc return program”, with a total budget of 11,5 million euros. Under this program, young researchers holding a PhD for less than five years are encouraged to set up a research team in France. Individual support to researchers can reach 700 000 euros for three years.
Italy. The country has designed in 2001 a program named « Rientro dei cervelli » (reentry of brains). Financial and fiscal incentives are used to attract back home expatriate scholars. A grant of 77 000 euros per year and per researcher is allocated during three years. Returning expatriates benefit from important tax reductions: in May, 2011, the law «fiscal measures for researchers returning to Italy» proposed to (less than 42 years old) expatriates to pay only 30% (male) or 20% (female) of the normal tax due. 600 researchers could benefit from this program over the first eight years.
United Kingdom. In 2000 the British government and the Wolfson Foundation (research charity) launched a five year research award (J20 million scheme) aiming at stimulating the return of Britain’s leading expatriate scientists, as well as the migration of top young researchers to the United Kingdom.
VI - Concluding remarks
A major aspect of the globalization process is the conflict which exists between what is «global» and what is «national». This conflict results in a permanent tension between the borderless nature of the market economy and the limited (national) scope of public policies: economic forces (« the market ») tend to expand worldwide, but the capacity of control and regulation over the economic process remains at national levels.
The issue of brain mobility illustrates this tension and this duality. From a global perspective, brain mobility helps to disseminate knowledge worldwide. It enhances the efficiency in the use of highly skilled capital. But from a national perspective, brain mobility is driven by competition between the most advanced countries, which try to attract within their R&D system the best quality of highly qualified manpower.
Countries suffering from brain drain try to reduce its flow by designing appropriate policies, but with limited results so far. In the long run, the key factor for stopping brain drain is the economic development and the strengthening of R&D sector in brain-exporting countries.
The pattern of global brain mobility is bound to change with the shifts in R&D capacities. South Korea, China and India are increasing their share of scientific publications, as a result of the development of their domestic R&D resources. Although less developed countries (African countries, especially) are still lagging behind, the changing pattern of the production of science and knowledge should lead to a change in the global pattern of brain mobility, with an increase of brain circulation, but less brain drain in the traditional sense.
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