This project, known as ‘MOBEX’, was concerned to examine the issue of scientific mobility (ie the international movement of scientists) within the European Research Area (ERA). The European Union is committed to increasing scientific mobility as part of its ERA strategy and specifically sponsors it via its funding programmes.
At EU level science mobility is seen as essential for the promotion of scientific growth and competitiveness and, more specifically, in promoting its strategy of regional specialisation and scientific clustering and the kinds of ‘knowledge transfer’ this demands. Nevertheless, the EU is also concerned about the issue of inequality both in terms of individual opportunity and also in a regional context. Unchecked these ERA policies lie in tension with the commitment to ‘balanced growth’ to the extent that they encourage the relocation of scientists to Centres of Excellence (typically located in the economically stronger regions) potentially reducing the ability of weaker regions to regenerate. The ‘circulation’ of scientific talent, in itself, is not constitutive of ‘brain drain’. The ‘problems’ arise when the rates of return are very low and also when the country or region in question fails to attract scientific talent from outside. On an individual level, the emphasis on mobility potentially generates differential opportunity as more ‘footloose’ scientists are able to respond to these challenges whilst others, perhaps with family or caring commitments, are less able to do so. Increasing emphasis upon the ‘expectation of mobility’ in science careers[1] – the corollary of clustering policy - may thus disadvantage certain groups of scientists restricting their ability to progress.
MOBEX has examined these issues through a 12 month empirical pilot study focusing on the flows of scientists between Italy and the UK. The decision to focus on Italy was taken for a number of reasons. Firstly, because we knew from our previous research (Ackers, 2001) and other studies of global ‘brain drain’ that Italy was a major ‘donor’ country within the EU and the UK, a key ‘recipient’. We also knew from our links with Italian scientists that the issue of ‘brain drain’ had moved onto the Italian political agenda in recent years and that various policy initiatives were being taken to mitigate its effects. Italy was thus selected as a case study enabling us to study, in an in-depth, contextualised fashion, the factors shaping scientific mobility and migration decision-making.
The research involved a combination of approaches designed to capture in as holistic a fashion as possible the processes shaping scientific mobility. MOBEX Included:
a) policy and legal analysis
b) email questionnaires
c) 8 qualitative interviews with key informants
d) 52 qualitative interviews with Italian scientists in the UK and returnees
These findings have produced specific outputs in the following areas:
a) The nature of the Italian scientific system and the factors encouraging exit and prohibiting entry and return
b) The attractiveness of the UK as a location for international scientists
c) The impact of ‘clustering activity’ on these processes
d) The issue of return mobility and re-integration
e) The importance of understanding the wider processes of knowledge transfer in mitigating the effects of brain drain
f) The impact of science mobility at a regional level and the extent to which it restricts scientific and economic growth in sending regions
g) The extent to which gender and life-course shape the ability of scientists to respond to the clear opportunities that mobility presents in terms of career progression
h) The specific situation of dual science career partnering and parenting on migration and career decision-making
i) At a more theoretical level, the work has developed our understanding of processes of skilled migration particularly in the following areas:
i. Conceptualisations of brain drain and the relationship between human mobility and knowledge transfer
ii. Return mobility and re-integration
iii. The relevance of gender and life course to the theorisation of highly skilled migration and, more specifically, to awareness of processes of tied migration in the context of dual science career couples
Dissemination plans include a Special Issue of The European Journal of Social Science Research); the PHARE symposium "Science Policy, Mobility and Brain Drain in the EU and candidate countries" (July 2003); and a workshop organised in collaboration with SCIENCE NEXTWAVE in February 2004. We have also worked closely with journalists from NATURE which will publish two articles on our findings in 2004.
As a pilot study, MOBEX had important developmental and policy objectives. From a UK perspective, the political agenda continues to focus on concerns about brain drain from the UK to the US and rarely acknowledges the importance of the UK as the beneficiary of EU flows. We knew from our previous work that this was the case and that the failure to explicitly recognise this situation and indeed act upon it in the context of enlargement might place the UK at a competitive disadvantage.
MOBEX set out to develop and test an approach to comparative analysis capable of being ‘rolled out’ into the accession countries as the basis for a more detailed study of science mobility post-enlargement. These objectives were taken forward with a series of applications for funding to build links with accession countries. The PHARE symposium in July 2003 both provided the opportunity to disseminate MOBEX findings but also to begin to learn abut these processes in five accession countries. Through this and other means, strong links have been built with scientists and policy-makers in the UK, the EU and accession countries that will underpin the ESRC Science and Society funded follow-up project (MOBEX2).
The project team also successfully secured EU funding for a cross-national study focusing specifically on the relationship between mobility and progression in science careers and the impact of this on women (the MOBISC project) which has added value to MOBEX.
Issues identified through the MOBEX pilot project will be further examined in a larger comparative study funded under Phase 2 of the Science in Society Programme (supported by co-funding by the Anglo-German Foundation). MOBEX2 will explore the impact of EU Enlargement on science labour markets in sending and receiving regions, focusing on the mobility flows of Polish and Bulgaria scientists into the UK and Germany.
