The brains that came – and went

Nuala Moran, Senior Editor

A recent survey of 1,203 scientists and technologists who moved back to India and China from the West found the main motivation was not, as might be expected, higher salaries. Instead, family ties and the demand for their skills was the attraction.

So how can universities, and more so, companies, in the West retain talent when money is no longer the big fat trump card it once was?

The first thing is to adopt a different attitude: at the very least it should be understood that the brain drain runs two ways. A more sophisticated take is to recognise that there is now a global market for scientific and technical talent.

But, as Gary Keil, Executive Recruitment for AstraZeneca put it in a panel discussion on the subject at the BioIndustry Organization (BIO) conference held in Atlanta last week, “The world is not flat: there are inequities that influence recruitment flows.”

Two recent examples are particularly apposite here. With the Irish economy underwater, there is much hand-wringing that home-grown talent is again leaving the country. Remember, it is not long since the strength of the economy meant it was no longer necessary for graduates to go abroad to get a job, and expatriates were returning in droves. For the first time in the history of the country, there was net immigration.

In the UK meanwhile, concerns that this year’s crop of university graduates will not be able to find jobs has prompted the government to advise them to leave the country. There is no place to hide from the global recession of course, but taking an internship, or doing voluntary work overseas, is recommended as a pragmatic way of acquiring skills in the absence of a permanent job.

Knowing why people are prepared to go through the upheaval of changing jobs and moving to another country - for a lower salary - is the key to working out how to retain them. Armed with this understanding it is possible to emulate the tactics that companies in India, China and elsewhere are using to attract talent, suggested panellists at BIO.

Anu Acharyan, the founder and CEO of the genomics services specialist Ocimium Biosolutions, said demand is the key factor. “Brains go from areas of lower opportunity to areas of higher opportunity.”

She founded Ocimium in the US, registering the company in Delaware, before moving back to India in 2000. At that time there was no genomics expertise in India and the company brought in skills from the US, UK and Japan.

Acharyan said there are opportunities and challenges faced by those contemplating a move back to India. In particular, it was a leap to come to work for a small start-up that was then the only genomics company in the country. “Most people are convinced in the end through family concerns, though the decision is easier if the compensation is right,” said Acharyan.

In New Zealand, the recently installed new government was elected on a manifesto that included a pledge to attract the country’s diaspora back home, noted Candace Toner, a US national who founded the New Zealand-based bioinformatics software company Biomatters Ltd. While the government attention should help, Toner said that she has to work hard to attract staff. The 15-strong company has employees from seven countries.

It isn’t possible to offer higher salaries and so Biomatters competes on terms and conditions, allowing staff to choose their own hours, offers equity, and pays for continuing education.

Similarly, recognition that money may not be the critical factor in retaining talent has forced AstraZeneca to focus on other aspects of the overall package. “You have to personalise to individual requirements, thus developing the person and the company in one fell swoop,” Keil said.

If all else fails, another panellist, Elspeth Macrae of the New Zealand agbio research firm Scion, suggests a default option, “Consider former staff as part of your network and maintain your relationship with them,” she said.