Shrinking populations are increasing brain drain woes in Widening countries

Demographic change is a problem for universities and research institutions across the continent but Widening countries are in a worse position, according to the European University Association’s (EUA) latest trends survey of 489 higher education institutions in 46 countries.

The survey found demographic change is a particularly pressing issue in Croatia, Latvia and Poland, and is affecting applied sciences institutions in particular.

“We believe [this] is the impact of decreasing cohorts of school graduates, paired with migration,” says Michael Gaebel, director of the higher education policy unit at EUA and a co-author of the report. “We clearly see a higher number of respondents in countries like Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova and Poland saying they are affected.”

Falling student numbers

Central and eastern Europe has long seen young people head abroad for education and jobs, and more recently other factors have exacerbated this issue. In 2022, the United Nations reported that all but one of the ten countries where the population is shrinking the fastest are in central and eastern Europe, and that this is the result of emigration and low birth rates.

The OECD estimates that 20% of Slovakian students leave to study abroad, compared to the EU average of 4%. Meanwhile in Hungary, it’s estimated 85% of emigrants are below the age of 40, and 33% of those who leave have a degree, compared to 18% of the Hungarian population.

Falling numbers impact universities and scientific research in a number of ways. Fewer students means fewer fees being paid and smaller cohorts to train up in new scientific fields. “Creating this link between education, training and the economy becomes more difficult, because you are increasingly forced to appeal to immigration,” says Robert Santa, chief research officer at the think tank Rethink Romania.

It could also lead to smaller research budgets, as states focus their finances on supporting an increasingly ageing population.

The EUA survey found that 59% of Polish institutions say demographic change is having a significantly impact - in Krakow alone, the student population is reported to have shrunk by almost 40% over the past decade. Eighty-six percent of Latvian institutions said that a combination of economic pressures and demographic change have affected them over the past five years.

The situation is worse in Lithuania where not one institution said it has been anything less than significantly impacted by demographic change.

Higher education student numbers in Lithuania fell from 210,000 in 2008 to just 102,000 in the 2022-2023 academic year, according to government statistics.

The response at the Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas, Lithuania’s second city, has been to consolidate its researchers into bigger, more competitive groups. The university now has five research institutes, established in 2021.

“The administration realised that we have fewer students in Lithuania in general, but we have quite professional groups of researchers in different disciplines,” says Jurga Bučaitė-Vilkė, the director of the Vytautas Kavolis Transdisciplinary Research Institute, one of the five institutes, which covers social sciences, including demographic and population studies. “It would have been a strategic loss, a disaster, if we let those people go to the business sector.”

The consolidation enables researchers to pool networks and also make stronger applications for national government funding and to Horizon Europe, Bučaitė-Vilkė says.

Brain circulation

As part of its objective of increasing European Research Area (ERA) participation among Widening countries, the European Commission has allocated €161 million to calls that explicitly aim to reverse brain drain in countries with falling populations.

Funded projects are intended to support early career researchers and encourage brain circulation, enticing scientists who have built networks abroad to return to their home countries.

These calls were opened after former research commissioner Mariya Gabriel pushed for more EU-level support to boost brain circulation among Widening countries.

More recently, there have been renewed efforts to make research the ‘fifth freedom’ of the EU’s single market. Earlier this month, former research commissioner Janez Potočnik said any efforts to realise this must also focus on “the horizontal pillar of widening and deepening ERA”.

As universities in countries with falling birth rates wait for policy to take effect, they are increasingly focusing on internationalisation.

Estonia has made this a cornerstone of its education strategy and between the 2020/21 and 2021/22 academic years, the number of international students is reported to have increased by 20%.  

Czechia has been successful in attracting students and in keeping them in the country afterwards. According to the Czech Statistical Office, the number of foreign students has risen from 11,000 in 2002 to 55,000 in 2023. The government statistics say 45% stay after their studies.

In Lithuania, foreign students now account for 10% of the student population and the government is keen to see more enroll in life sciences, engineering and IT. Many of these students come from India, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Universities have also been offering free education to Ukranians.

These measures are only likely to be a short-term fix, Gaebel said. “There’s a question of how good a strategy this is if all institutions try to do [it].”