Make funding for doctoral research open and competitive

The primary attractor for individuals is not mobility, but opportunity. The opportunity to address important and exciting problems through generous funding and appropriate career structures; the freedom and responsibility for talented young researchers to choose and direct their own research; the opportunity to work with the best scholars; and the opportunity to access world-class facilities.

The world-class research universities which create these opportunities are a consequence of open and competitive funding systems for research. The funding comes mainly from governments but also private foundations and benefactors who recognise that the openness of national systems to foreign research students enables regions and institutions to ensure that by competitively recruiting excellent individuals from elsewhere they have a world-class benchmark for their locally recruited students.

An international student body will enhance creativity through cross-fertilisation of backgrounds and develop greater international connectivity through the international students’ inevitable comparison of research career opportunities afforded by their host region with those if they were to return home or move elsewhere. Their awareness will help to ensure that research careers are also attractive to indigenous talents. This is how world-class research universities develop their intimate understanding of the motivations of young researchers.

It is now commonplace to assert that researcher mobility is currently restricted by the employment and social policies of states. While not refuting that proposition it is the view of the League of European Research Universities that a lack of open and competitive funding systems for doctoral research seriously inhibits the creation of those opportunities that are the attractors of real research talent.