In the past, “brain drain” has proved a big curse for developing countries like India but in the emerging global competitive environment, “brain drain” can provide crucial advantage to formerly backward regions (Saxenian, 2000). US educated and trained engineers and scientists can accelerate the technological upgrading of regional economies by transferring up to date technological knowledge and market information. Through successful ‘diffusion of knowledge’, communities of such scientists or engineers can provide the skill and know-how needed to help local firms shift to higher value added activities. Our research explored the dynamics of scientific labour markets and its implications for international knowledge transfer and regional development by focusing on a developing country - India.
Our previous research on the Indian pharmaceutical industry showed that, as a response to change in patent law, Indian firms are developing capabilities in innovative R&D by hiring Indian scientists working overseas in multinational pharmaceutical firms’ R&D laboratories. However findings of the study also suggested that transfer of knowledge by hiring scientists is not a straight-forward process and so proposed research focused on investigation of issues involved in successful diffusion of knowledge through human mobility, using the case of the Indian pharmaceutical industry.
The main objectives of the research were: to explore relationships between human mobility and diffusion of knowledge in firms from developing countries; identify key issues and policies that facilitate or restrict knowledge diffusion within scientific research through human mobility; and, to describe and understand implications of issues related to management policies in facilitating or restricting the migration of scientific labour.
This research built on findings and contacts from our earlier study on the development of innovative R&D competencies in the Indian pharmaceutical industry. We used five innovative Indian pharmaceutical firms as case studies for in-depth investigation and collected primary data through semi-structured interviews with R&D presidents, senior scientists and returned scientists.
The return of Indian scientists from abroad to work in Indian pharmaceutical firms is a recent phenomenon and our qualitative research data on five key Indian firms represents the first systematic documentation of this emerging phenomenon. The research has revealed important insights regarding the issues affecting the diffusion of knowledge through migration scientific labour in India.
First, our analysis reveals that scientists from two different generations are returning to work in Indian firms. One group is junior scientists who have just finished their doctoral or post doctoral degrees while the other group are senior scientists quite close to retirement. This generational difference is providing interesting and important insights on the differential impact on tensions between skills obtained outside and perceived skill needs inside Indian firms.
Second, differences in working culture in the Indian firms and western firms have emerged as an important issue in effective diffusion of knowledge specifically in the case of senior scientists returning to work in India. Most Indian firms are family owned and controlled businesses which had grown in the era of weak patent regime that built strong process R&D skills. Therefore the working culture in the Indian firms is shaped by the ‘generic market’ mindset focused on early returns and tight management control. This mindset and resulting working culture creates conflicts with returning scientists who had mostly worked in professionally managed western firms.
Third, the research has drawn out differences between the requirements of Indian pharmaceutical firms and the skill sets of returnees. Indian pharmaceutical firms need scientists who can guide or contribute to the firm around the whole drug discovery process whereas most of scientists have specialised knowledge in a particular discipline or therapeutic area due to their working experience in academia or western firms. This has created a mismatch between the broader requirements of the Indian firms and narrower skill sets of the returning scientists.
Finally, the research also shows the importance of social infrastructure on the decisions of US based Indian scientists to return to India, suggesting an important role for government policy in providing and establishing adequate physical and social infrastructure.
The analysis also shows that Indian firms responded to these issues by adopting global R&D management practices. Firms introduced less hierarchical and more open management structures to attract and retain returned scientists.
Our research findings have important implications for detailed understanding of scientific knowledge transfer through human mobility. They have led to the development of a new research proposal “Engaging international migration and human mobility in the development of innovative policy solutions for reducing poverty”, aimed at studying the impact of international migration and mobility of scientists, technologists on economic growth in South Africa and India.
We have organised a conference session entitled ‘Moving Knowledge Moving People’ in a prestigious conference organised by Innogen (the ESRC Centre for Social and Economic Research on Innovation in Genomics) in September, 2006. This session will help disseminate our research findings to policy makers, practitioners and academics working in the area of knowledge flows to developing countries.
We are disseminating research findings to an academic audience by presenting in a conference organised for SPRU’s 40th Anniversary Conference - The Future of Science, Technology and Innovation Policy in September, 2006.
Two articles (by David Wield, Joanna Chataway and Dinar Kale) are in preparation for submission to Research Policy and World Development journals. These aim use our empirical data to add to the theoretical insights of earlier authors like Saxenian.
We have maintained and expanded our networking and collaboration with key players in the Indian pharmaceutical industry and American Association of Indian Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAiPS).
The findings of this research have contributed towards the objectives of the ‘Science in Society’ programme by exploring the uneven global distribution of scientific expertise and its consequences for economic development. Our research has revealed issues such as the barriers and facilitators associated with diffusion of knowledge through the mobility of trans-national scientists or engineers. From the perspective of developing countries, it points out the important role of government policy in creating social infrastructure for attracting and utilising returnees’ resources for economic development.