IAUP Bangkok

1
IAUP Bangkok Pattaya

• GATS Brain Drain or Brain Gain?
• Richard Braddock

2
Definitions

• Brain Drain The migration of a large number of
  professionals such as, scientists, doctors,
  engineers and academics away from Universities
  and workplaces in their own countries, to other
  countries.
• Brain Gain The improved ability to learn, solve
  problems quickly and make good decisions as a
  result of the spread of knowledge.

3
The Human Capital Theory
4

• The simplistic and common view of brain drain is
  that the migration of skilled professionals,
  particularly from developing countries to
  industrial countries, is a great drain on
  developing countries and has a very negative
  impact on their economies and their populations
  standards of living.
• View is based on human capital theory which
  focuses on changes in professional inputs and
  outputs as a result of individual migration.
• Weaknesses of the theory is that it focuses on an
  individuals presence in a foreign country,
• ignoring when and where their skills have been
  developed or synergies conferred.

5

• The Diaspora Option!

• A contrasting theory of brain drain focuses on
  the collective nature of knowledge.
• Supporters of this theory suggest the brain drain
  phenomenon is far more complex than the human
  capital theory presumes, and proposes that brain
  drain can be transformed into brain gain in
  conducive environments.
• New technology and improved communication lines
  are making the process of creating these
  environments easier. The third industrial
  revolution-that is, the information revolution
  sparked by the use of computers and high
  technology is central to changes in migration
  patterns.

6
The Knowledge Diaspora
7

• A crucial advantage of the diaspora option is
  that it does not rely on a prior infrastructural
  massive investment, as it consists in
  capitalizing on already existing resources.
• The country may have access not only to the
  individuals embodied knowledge but also to the
  socio-professional networks in which they are
  inserted overseas.
• Migration no longer an isolated issue separate
  from the development process.

8

• In the past, innovation occurred within elite
  research and development divisions of large firms
  otherwise staffed by unskilled labour.
• Now, innovation is the product of labour, and
  entire firms at the forefront of the information
  revolution exist for no purpose other than
  research and development.
• Therefore labour and intellectual capital are
  fused into one, a crucial change in how we
  conceptualise land, labour and capital.

9
The Affect of Migration

• Several projects, including many by UNESCO,
  demonstrate how brain drain can be converted into
  brain gain.
• However, this is far from easy and involves
  organized international communication and good
  policy on the part of sending countries and
  receiving countries.
• It is access to skilled labour that will define
  the distribution of information and it is in
  universities in particular, that labour and
  intellectual capital are developed as a resource
  for not only for nations but the global economy.

10

• There are both gains and losses resulting from
  skilled migration.
• Individuals gain from migration by increased
  personal development, increased salaries, and
  opportunities to work with new technology and the
  opportunity for employment that is not available
  in their homeland.
• Universities gain through more qualified teaching
  and research staff with different perspectives
  and ideas and increased competition which leads
  to greater gains.
• Returned migrating students or professionals
  will be experienced and well educated, and the
  transfer process allows for a better relationship
  between universities worldwide and more research
  links.

11

• Pessimistic View
• - the home country looses qualified workers,
  having wasted money on education and suffers a
  permanent drain on their economy and the
  countrys stability, as a result of the
  disappearance of the best and brightest.
• From this observation, it seems there is little
  to be done except to condemn industrialized
  countries for gaining at the expense of
  developing countries which are forced into deeper
  debt.
• There is an element of truth in this analysis
  however it is a simplistic and unhelpful
  explanation of brain drain as it presumes there
  are no opportunities to reap benefits from
  outward flows of talent.

12

• There are a number of competing stakeholders in
  education who have interests in the personal
  development of individuals, the national wealth
  of society and the progress of civilization.
• As a result, brain drain is not a static
  phenomenon instead it is ever changing and can
  be manipulated by individuals, governments,
  universities and knowledge networks.

13
Strategies to Convert Brain Drain to Brain Gain
14

• In Higher Education managerial and
  commercialisation objectives, short and long run,
  may create the pool of resources that can be
  allocated to sustain those scholarly activities
  essential to the very nature of knowledge
  creation in a university environment.
• In the longer term this will enlarge
  institutional capacity to undertake research and
  disseminate knowledge within national and global
  interest.
• The Knowledge Diaspora constitutes a huge
  potential of additional resources for developing
  countries. In the past policies to prevent brain
  drain have failed because they have been based on
  underlying simplistic theoretical assumptions.
• They referred to human capital where the skilled
  person is conceived as an individual capital
  asset, consisting of a unique set of skills and
  professional experience.

15

• Strategies are in the adoption of an enabling
  environment to nurture human creativity, critical
  thinking and freedom of expression and
  establishing state-of-the-art research facilities
  and centers of excellence to reach a critical
  mass of expertise in national priority areas.
• Countries that are adopting an enabling
  environment to attract expatriates are
  exemplified by South Korea. Similar patterns are
  also beginning to appear in India and China.
• Growing recognition of the global benefits of
  greater mobility. Emigration of talent may
  provide a positive signal that motivates others
  in the sending country to acquire more education,
  thereby raising human capital and potentially
  promoting growth.

16

• There is no denying that many expatriates build
  their professional and personal lives overseas
  long term.
• However, most will still have colleagues, family
  or friends at home and are concerned about the
  development of their homeland.
• Cultural identity and family are the main reasons
  that expats do return home, so there is no reason
  to think that these things do not play on the
  minds of those who remain abroad.

17
Examples of Knowledge Networks

• According to a recent survey, of the members of
  the Colombian Caldas Network of Scientists and
  Engineers Abroad. The Diaspora has spread to at
  least 25 countries and has been present in up to
  43 countries in the recent past.
• The regions include North America, Western
  Europe, Eastern Europe, Latin America and Asia
  Oceania.
• People significantly acquire skills abroad. At
  best, they have low level general qualifications
  when they leave and on their return, after
  studies and professional training abroad, they
  are highly skilled in specialized areas. (Murcia
  and Parrado)

18

• Emigration is not desertion it is a life
  sequence for professional and personal
  enrichment.
• Overseas experience is a form of self initiated
  apprenticeship in the new, uncertain, boundary
  free, globalised world of work as promised for
  the new millennium.
• When asked if they will come back home and stay
  in Columbia, ¾ of the members answered
  positively.
• Migration should be termed delayed return not
  brain drain because when returnees finally arrive
  home, they return with a multitude of skills that
  they may have never obtained had they not
  traveled abroad.

19

• An electronic list of Columbians abroad, Colext
  started to gather an increasing number of
  expatriates connected to bitnet, an exclusively
  academic network.
• After much electronic communication between
  professionals, most members believed that they
  could benefit the country better from the outside
  than inside.
• The electronic list generated a collective
  self-consciousness of a worldwide intellectual
  expatriate community.

20

• The transfer of knowledge through the Expatriate
  Nationals Programme at the newly established
  University of Mali filled the urgent need for
  qualified teaching and research personnel in a
  number of key areas by bringing Malian academics
  living abroad back to their home country on short
  term contracts.
• Twelve missions by visiting expatriate professors
  to the University of Mali were held in 2000-2001
  academic year as part of the project.
• Visiting professors living in Africa, Europe and
  America represented specialists in a wide range
  of fields including international law,
  engineering, mathematics, marketing, tourism and
  computer science.

21

• The linguistic and cultural skills of those who
  had been working abroad greatly facilitated the
  smooth transfer of knowledge and skills.
• Similarly, UNESCO has had reasonable success with
  brain gain projects in Eastern Europe.
• The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Strategy was
  established in response to the massive emigration
  of young university graduates who make up a large
  proportion of the Diaspora from the South East
  European Area.
• The Alleviating Brain Drain in Bosnia, Croatia
  and Yugoslavia Project is one of the 14 pilot
  activities of this Strategy.

22

• The main idea behind the project is to treat
  brain drain as an opportunity for positive
  economic change and stabilization of South East
  Europe and a catalyst for Yugoslavias successful
  integration into the European and global
  communities.
• The objectives are to strengthen links between
  institutions in the region and create
  professional ties between the young professionals
  Diaspora.
• There are several other professional networks in
  operation around the world including the Arab
  Scientists and Technologists Abroad (ASTA) and
  the Latin American Association of Scientists
  (ALAS)

23
Globalisation

• Ideally, governments should build and maintain an
  academic environment that sustains and advances
  accessibility and quality.
• As international companies continue to spread
  throughout the world, so too will the
  opportunities for internationally educated
  students and academics to return to their home
  countries to fruitful employment. Increasing
  technology is also making it easier for brain
  drain to be converted to brain gain.

24
The Role of Universities

• Universities can influence the talent flow to
  reduce the losses for developing countries.
• Universities have direct influence over how many
  domestic graduates end up working in local
  universities.
• Universities can influence how many international
  staff work in their universities and brain gain,
  by opening employment terms and opportunities.
• The internationalization of the professions
  implies a convergence towards international
  standards and procedures and away from nationally
  defined standards and national forms of
  regulation. This is not necessarily bad!

25

• This will allow national labour markets to
  welcome professionals with qualifications from
  elsewhere in the world.
• Universities have a responsibility to encourage
  and assist overseas study for students from these
  regions and, to encourage local students to
  travel to these regions where they too can
  benefit from cultural exchange.
• If Universities take a positive approach, they
  can maintain highly useful research links with
  their Alumni, both students and staff, rather
  than cutting them off as deserting their mother
  country.

26

• Governments and Universities should not only
  encourage quality research institutions but help
  developing countries in reaching a balance of
  outward and inward migrations.
• These flows have a significant impact on
  education and as a consequence on the national
  skills and knowledge base of society
• Policies aimed at encouraging entrepreneurship,
  training, education and research are all
  important. Centres of excellence, research and
  higher education institutions were found to have
  acted as a Mecca for attracting people and many
  become part of their elite and stay.

27
Conclusion

• Brain Drain is not a new phenomenon it has been
  going on for hundreds of years all over the
  world.
• In the past return migration was thought to be
  the only way to turn brain drain into brain gain
  but the concept of a collective knowledge
  Diaspora is rapidly becoming popular.
• The crucial advantage of the Diaspora option
  resides in its flexible networking component. It
  does not require a massive infrastructural
  investment beyond the reach of many developing
  countries.

28

• However it does require a firm commitment in
  regards to policy and a strategic thinking in
  regards to management.
• Universities play a crucial role in the
  development of knowledge networks and the
  creation of brain gain for developing countries.
• The solution lies in both current and future
  generations of university leaders excepting the
  reality of new funding models, stakeholder
  expectations, and the need to think creatively as
  to how their institutions can adapt to the new
  standards of accountability while simultaneously
  encouraging global institutional links to curb
  the brain drain and convert it to brain gain.

29
Fully Integrated Model
Reverse Flows occur
Brain Gain
Talented Students Study in Other Countries Brain
Drain occurs