Scientific migration: a drain, or a gain...or something else?

Scientists are moving around as never before. And, argues Jean Guinet from the OECD, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

The "brain drain" is a growing political issue. In Berlin, politicians campaigning for office this autumn bemoaned the flight of scientific talent to more-dynamic economies. In London - where the phrase was coined in the 1950s, when postwar America was stocking its labs with European immigrants - the science minister today laments the 400,000 British researchers working abroad.

In truth, reliable data on scientific migration are hard to come by - but it’s clear that the traffic isn't a one-sided affair. Among highly skilled workers of all professions - not just science - more than half a million Germans work abroad, according to a study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. But Germany also benefits from hosting than a million skilled foreigners. The bottom line: a net gain. In Britain, the balance of trade in skilled workers is about even. The U.S. has long been the world’s biggest net importer of talent. And China is fast rising as a net exporter.

Analysing the flows of scientists between countries is one of the tasks of Jean Guinet, acting head of the OECD’s Science and Technology Policy Division. He spoke last week at his office in the La Défense section of Paris with Richard L. Hudson, Science Business Editor.

Why are you studying this?

We need to make the debate a little more peaceful, a little more objective. We have to establish what are the flows. Which are the biggest exporting countries? Which the biggest importers? Can you speak at this time of a more fruitful cycle - what you might call brain circulation, instead of brain drain or brain gain?

Brain circulation - is that your neologism?

Voilà. It’s a way of getting out of the opposition between brain drain and brain gain. Everyone sees himself as a winner or loser in a competition for intellectual resources. But if the brains circulate, if everything is in motion, it benefits everybody. It benefits exporter and importer.

Is this brain circulation good?

From our point of view it's very positive. From there, all kinds of possibilities grow, of connection, of communication, for everybody who participates in this type of economy. For a country to keep its people, or to draw others, it’s necessary to participate in this circulation. That is to say, to import one must export. There is now a global research space. It's clearly so for industrial innovation, which is above all the concern of the globalised enterprise. But for education, for public research, it’s also more and more the case.

What about those countries that are net exporters? Is it good for them?

It depends on how you view change. When people go, they add to their experience, their perspective. And the benefits gained are not external to the home economy. There is the networking effect. One doesn't have to attract an American researcher to benefit from the efficiency of the American system; the presence of the national researcher in the American system, who keeps relations with the system of origin, is a manner of benefiting. And of course they benefit when the people who went away come back, with new experience.

Only after a long time...

Yes, after a long time. But the rate of return is variable depending on the country, and it's a cultural thing. The French come back more systematically than others, for example. I remember what the Chinese minister of research said, when he was asked about this subject. He said: Look, if two million Chinese go abroad to study and only one million come back, it would be magnificent. (Laughs.) Well, the million learned things in Japan, in America. The Chinese saw how the Koreans or others played this [migration] card very well - how they benefited from this circulation and how they came back. There is always a certain number who leave their country of origin, develop a larger professional and social network, and who are then going to function more efficiently to the benefit of both countries - the country of origin and the country visited.

How big an exporter is China?

I can't be precise on that (an OECD study of the Chinese scientific system is just beginning.) It’s certainly a principal exporter of human resources. The real question is how is it evolving? China disposes of such vast resources - will it continue to be in surplus to others, or will there be an equilibrium? One can hypothesise that many of those who leave will come back because their career possibilities will grow exponentially in China. China has formed a business incubator devoted solely to the repatriated. If you are Chinese of origin, if you have been three or ten years in the US and you have an idea to come back, then you will benefit from help launching your company. You are welcomed into a structure that gives you financing, facilities - all with a view to attracting Chinese scientists and would-be technological entrepreneurs back to the country.

But again, what about the countries that feel they are losing?

The answer is you have to close the circle, to have the return loop. Yes, you have to wait a long time. But it works globally. If every country gets more attractive by strengthening its national base, it will retain its own people and attract others - and that can only raise the energy level of the entire global system.