US not attractive to American scientists or engineers
Saturday, 24 November 2007
Sami Mahroum
In 1998, investigating the brain drain from Europe to the US for the European Commission, I found that the US was indeed attracting European scientists and engineers, but many more were coming from Asia and elsewhere.
More worryingly, the US appeared to be attracting the world's next generation of scientists and engineers, as reflected in the international students enrolled in its universities.
There was one country whose citizens did not find the US attractive enough to pursue a career in science and engineering: the US itself. Every year the proportion of American students enrolling in science and engineering programmes continues to drop, while the proportion of foreign students goes up.
Between 1980 and 2000, the percentage of scientists and engineers with PhDs employed in the US who were foreign-born rose from 24 per cent to 37 per cent. A third of all US PhDs in science and engineering are now awarded to foreign-born graduate students. Between 1990 and 2004, those who were foreign-born accounted for more than a third of Nobel prizes awarded to scientists in the US.
In contrast, Europe continues to have higher rates of student enrolment in science and engineering programmes, largely drawn from the local-born population. In 2006, 27 per cent of European Union university graduates obtained science or engineering degrees, compared with 24 per cent in Japan and just 16 per cent in the US. Europe continues to produce more science and engineering PhDs than either the US or Japan, in proportional and absolute terms.
Nevertheless, European debates on the brain drain tend to be obsessive about the US, holding it as a threat and a model. How can the US be a model when it fails to attract its own citizens to science and engineering?
The US invests about 2.5 per cent of its gross domestic product on research and development, significantly more than Europe, which spends only 1.8 per cent. These figures can be misleading. Europeans spend less on R&D, but resources are shared by a smaller number of researchers. Also, European businesses invest far more in R&D per researcher than do US businesses ($232,000 vs $180,000 in 2001).
Most of the 12 core EU countries, where competition for talent with the US is most intense, have higher R&D investment rates when measured against the size of their research workforce. This means the individual researcher on average has better working conditions than his or her American counterpart.
The situation around Europe varies. In Ireland, Germany and Sweden most researchers are employed in the business sector, where R&D investment is high. These countries have also high enrolment and graduation rates in science and engineering. At the other end are Greece, Portugal and Spain, with large higher education sectors suffering from low investment and subsequently low pay. As a result, careers in R&D in these countries have a bad image and enrolment and graduation rates suffer.
The Lisbon Agenda, which calls on Europeans to boost R&D spending to reach a minimum of 3 per cent of GDP, expects the private sector to make the biggest contribution towards that target. Yet common sense implies otherwise. European governments need to boost their public spending on R&D in order to improve the performance of the roughly 50 per cent of their research workforce who happen to work in the public sector.
Indeed, European public sector science lags behind that of the US, both in output and in quality, when measured by the number of researchers employed. The European brain drain is driven by a gap in quality that is reflected in a gap in public sector funding of science.
In contrast, the US government may have to consider ways to improve levels of R&D funding in the private sector. One solution would be to encourage more private/public sector partnerships in R&D projects through which funds and resources can be channelled into the private sector without creating the conditions for a further inflation of the R&D workforce in that sector.
Thus, while the US academic sector, particularly Ivy League institutions, will continue to attract European scientists and engineers at the top, the European business sector may have an edge over its US counterpart and may be in a better position to compete for local and international talent.
(The writer is a senior policy analyst at the UK's National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts)
In 1998, investigating the brain drain from Europe to the US for the European Commission, I found that the US was indeed attracting European scientists and engineers, but many more were coming from Asia and elsewhere.
More worryingly, the US appeared to be attracting the world's next generation of scientists and engineers, as reflected in the international students enrolled in its universities.
There was one country whose citizens did not find the US attractive enough to pursue a career in science and engineering: the US itself. Every year the proportion of American students enrolling in science and engineering programmes continues to drop, while the proportion of foreign students goes up.
Between 1980 and 2000, the percentage of scientists and engineers with PhDs employed in the US who were foreign-born rose from 24 per cent to 37 per cent. A third of all US PhDs in science and engineering are now awarded to foreign-born graduate students. Between 1990 and 2004, those who were foreign-born accounted for more than a third of Nobel prizes awarded to scientists in the US.
In contrast, Europe continues to have higher rates of student enrolment in science and engineering programmes, largely drawn from the local-born population. In 2006, 27 per cent of European Union university graduates obtained science or engineering degrees, compared with 24 per cent in Japan and just 16 per cent in the US. Europe continues to produce more science and engineering PhDs than either the US or Japan, in proportional and absolute terms.
Nevertheless, European debates on the brain drain tend to be obsessive about the US, holding it as a threat and a model. How can the US be a model when it fails to attract its own citizens to science and engineering?
The US invests about 2.5 per cent of its gross domestic product on research and development, significantly more than Europe, which spends only 1.8 per cent. These figures can be misleading. Europeans spend less on R&D, but resources are shared by a smaller number of researchers. Also, European businesses invest far more in R&D per researcher than do US businesses ($232,000 vs $180,000 in 2001).
Most of the 12 core EU countries, where competition for talent with the US is most intense, have higher R&D investment rates when measured against the size of their research workforce. This means the individual researcher on average has better working conditions than his or her American counterpart.
The situation around Europe varies. In Ireland, Germany and Sweden most researchers are employed in the business sector, where R&D investment is high. These countries have also high enrolment and graduation rates in science and engineering. At the other end are Greece, Portugal and Spain, with large higher education sectors suffering from low investment and subsequently low pay. As a result, careers in R&D in these countries have a bad image and enrolment and graduation rates suffer.
The Lisbon Agenda, which calls on Europeans to boost R&D spending to reach a minimum of 3 per cent of GDP, expects the private sector to make the biggest contribution towards that target. Yet common sense implies otherwise. European governments need to boost their public spending on R&D in order to improve the performance of the roughly 50 per cent of their research workforce who happen to work in the public sector.
Indeed, European public sector science lags behind that of the US, both in output and in quality, when measured by the number of researchers employed. The European brain drain is driven by a gap in quality that is reflected in a gap in public sector funding of science.
In contrast, the US government may have to consider ways to improve levels of R&D funding in the private sector. One solution would be to encourage more private/public sector partnerships in R&D projects through which funds and resources can be channelled into the private sector without creating the conditions for a further inflation of the R&D workforce in that sector.
Thus, while the US academic sector, particularly Ivy League institutions, will continue to attract European scientists and engineers at the top, the European business sector may have an edge over its US counterpart and may be in a better position to compete for local and international talent.
(The writer is a senior policy analyst at the UK's National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts)