The International Mobility of Academics: The UK Case. by Sami Mahroum

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1 The International Mobility of Academics: The UK Case by Sami Mahroum ISBN: DISSERTATION.COM USA 2002

2 The International Mobility of Academics: The UK Case Copyright 2002 Sami Mahroum All rights reserved. Dissertation.com USA 2002 ISBN:

3 The International Mobility of Academics: The UK Case A Ph.D. dissertation written by Sami Mahroum under the supervision of Professor Thomas Straubhaar of the University of the Federal Armed Forces Hamburg, Germany. October

4 Preface This thesis is the result of three years work of which two of them were spent at the Institute for Prospective Technological Studies in Seville, Spain. Many people have assisted me in my pursue to complete this work, most notably Professor Thomas Straubhaar of the University of the Federal Armed Forces Hamburg and director of the Hamburg Institute of International Economics (HWWA). A lot of thanks should go to Dr. Ken Ducatel who has provided me with a lot of comments and advise on my work during my stay in Seville. Finally, I d like to thank Hana for her support during my work on this thesis. 2

5 For my parents 3

6 Chapter 1 7 Immigration as an opportunity 7 Introduction 7 The effect of mobility on socio-economic development 8 The effect of Mobility on labour markets 12 Chapter 2 15 The Study plan and objectives 15 This Study 16 Study aims and objectives 18 Study Plan and methodology 19 Concepts and Literature 23 Who is a highly skilled person? 24 What is mobility? 25 Why does mobility exist? 26 Executives and Senior Managers 28 Technicians and Engineers 29 Entrepreneurs 30 Students 32 Chapter 3 34 The Theoretical Foundations 34 The Mobility of Scientists 34 Professional Mobility 38 The rise of the celebrity culture in professions 39 The Globalization of Professions 43 Science as a Global Profession 47 Science as a global space 50 The Pursuit of Prestige 53 Summary 61 Chapter 4 63 The Empirical Test 63 Introduction 63 The UK Scientific/Academic Landscape 64 Definitions And Methodology 65 The Data 66 The Distribution of the Inflows 67 Magnet academic disciplines in the UK 68 UK magnet institutions across the two top magnet disciplines 71 Clinical medicine 71 4

7 Biosciences 73 Main Recipient Universities 76 University College London 79 Imperial College 81 Cambridge University 83 Edinburgh University 85 Summary of Findings 87 Evaluation 89 Chapter 5 91 Oxford University: A Case Study 91 Introduction 91 The questions 95 Description of the respondents 96 Relationship with home country 98 General Perceptions 99 Attractive Aspects 101 Role of Quality and Reputation 102 The country as an attraction 104 The city/town as an attraction 106 Least Appreciated Aspects 107 Summary 109 Chapter Evaluation 111 Introduction 111 The UK as an attraction 112 The institution as an attraction 113 The city/town as an attraction 115 Implications for the Individual Career 116 Implications for countries and locations 117 Implications for national patterns of science 118 Chapter Europe in Perspective 122 Inward and outward mobility in Western Europe 124 From a Path to a Network 129 Policy recommendations 132 Scientific excellence 133 Mobility Programmes 136 5

8 Immigration Policies 137 Legislation 138 List of references 139 Appendix I 149 Appendix IIAppendix III 150 Appendix III 151 Appendix IV 152 Appendix V 153 Appendix VI 153 Appendix VI 154 Appendix VII 154 Appendix VII 155 Appendix VIII 155 Appendix VIII 156 Appendix IX 157 6

9 Chapter 1 Immigration as an opportunity Introduction Immigration, particularly of the highly skilled, is becoming increasingly an inseparable segment of national technology and economic development policies. This is reflected in the immigration policies of major industrialized economies, which have experienced significant changes in recent years shifting towards more openness to highly skilled immigrants. In France, for example, a so-called Scientific visa has been introduced since 1998 as a fast track procedure to allow scientists from non-european Economic Area (EEA) countries to work in France. Likewise, in Germany the government has, amid political controversy, introduced Green Cards for IT professionals from non-eea countries to work in Germany. Other countries such as Australia, Canada, and the US have also strengthened their selective immigration policies, which target the highly skilled professionals. Governments are increasingly viewing technology transfer and knowledge-driven economic growth as, primarily, a people-oriented phenomenon and are fearing that their countries might be losing their competitive edge in what seems like a global competition for certain skills. The competition for highly skilled workers is believed to be intense and fierce with traditional flows of talented people between countries that tended to go from the south to the north are now in some cases reversed. More countries in the south, particularly, in South East Asia and in Eastern (Europe), are catching up technologically and becoming increasingly knowledge-based economies, and thus highly skilled scientists and engineers might stop flowing out from there. PhD students from Korea and Taiwan that used to stay in the US after their graduation are no returning home to pick up attractive career opportunities. Thus, the brain drain and brain gain might are now going in more than one 7

10 direction. This might threaten countries (like the US) that depend heavily on foreign talent. The effect of mobility on socio-economic development By far the most important determinant of society's standard of living is the productivity of the persons who make the goods and services. Productivity depends, of course, upon education and training, upon the amount of capital with which people cooperate, and upon the efficiency with which that capital is used (Simon, 1987). In the long run, the most important economic effect of immigrants is their contribution to a society s stock of useful knowledge. A cumulative human capital produces positive knowledge externalities that spill over the economy in which they occur and, thus, countries, which have high levels of human capital, grow more quickly (Straubhaar, 2000). This is promulgated by the so-called New growth theory that claims increased returns to investments due to emerging externalities. Thus, for example, the more IT specialists there are in a given location the higher the experience with IT technology is and, consequently, the higher the learning is. The increased learning leads to an increased knowledge reservoir at the given location and, thus, a higher rate of knowledge spin-over, innovation and productivity. Knowledge stems from human minds. The existence and availability of a significant reservoir of highly skilled science and technology labour is crucial not only for universities and research institutes but also in the productive sector. Knowledge needs not only to be generated, but also absorbed. Research has shown that indeed there are positive economic and technological externalities associated with the immigration of highly skilled human capital to a given location. 8

11 Saxenian (1999), for instance, has studied and shown the positive economic and technological externality of e/immigration of Indians and Chinese highly skilled human capital on both the sending and the receiving countries (with the US being on the receiving end). Saxenian (1999) has shown that, indeed, the positive externalities associated with skilled migration go beyond the economics of market prizes, labour, and capital, and reflect themselves more in increased technological and economic entrepreneurship networks in and between the sending and the receiving countries. These new technological transnational networks are perceived as stimulators of new inventions, innovations, and economic growth both in the sending and the receiving countries (Walz, 1996). Although some of the theoretical arguments in this respect go back to the development literature of the 1950s, they have seen a revival in the mid-1980s with the birth of the so called New Growth Theory (Strauhbaar, 2000). Starting with the seminal papers by Paul Romer (1986, 1987, 1990) or Robert Lucas (1988) the immigration of skilled migrants has been evaluated as stimulating the dynamics of economic growth. The opportunities provided for the highly skilled newcomers in their host countries together with those that are indirectly brought over by them in the home country act like new market incentives that affect profoundly the pace and direction of economic progress in both locations. When the incentives are stronger, growth is faster Romer (1998). Therefore, places with abundant access to highly skilled human capital will be in a better position to lead, integrate, or catch up in the fast growing knowledge-based economy. Therefore, the international mobility of highly skilled professionals has been an issue of wide debate and intense study in the field of development studies, particularly in the context of south-north migration and brain drain (e.g. Patinkin, 1968; Johnson, 1968; Bhagwati, 1976; Simon, 1987; Gaillard & Gaillard, 1998). Several arguments have stemmed from the debate about brain drain, particularly in a north-south context. There has been no agreement on 9

12 whether a brain drain certainly causes an injury to the sending country (Simon, 1987). The main stream attitude in the debate tends to strongly associate brain drain with negative impacts. Bhagwati (1976), for instance, insists that a brain drain deprives poor countries from developing their own human capital and demands a compensation mechanism for the effected countries. The acquisition of a national human capital is a crucial condition for development, it is argued (Patinkin, 1968), and a brain drain deprives a nation from reaching this objective. This opinion, also known as the nationalist perspective, seems also to be prevalent in national governments. The fear that sending countries make investments in the education of their citizens and then to lose these citizens for other countries is a risk of a great loss. There is not only a loss of the direct costs of educating these emigrants, but also there i a loss of taxes that the sending country would not be able to collect from them (Mullan et. al, 1995). There is also a loss of the services that the migrants otherwise would have provided and a whole series of other multiplier effects, such as training of junior colleagues, absorbing and cumulating knowledge for local use etc. Thus not all countries and regions in the world can benefit from a growing international circulation of highly skilled labour. As an example, while the UK participates very actively in the international mobility of professionals by sending and receiving talents, countries like Russia and Eastern Europe mostly suffer of severe brain drain. In the latter case, the outflows of professionals become an extremely serious phenomenon that is difficult to influence through immigration policy alone. In contrast with the arguments that have associated a brain drain with negative consequences alone, there is the so-called cosmopolitan perspective. The cosmopolitan perspective sees a brain drain as nothing more than a reflection of the operation of an international market for a specific factor of production, in 10

13 this case skilled human capital (Johnson, 1968). In this approach, it is argued that like any factor of production, human capital will move to those regions where its productivity and reward are highly. It will tend to flow where its use produces the greatest contribution, which will end up maximizing world output. Furthermore, it is argued that higher prospective returns to skills in a foreign country impinge on skill acquisition decisions at the sending country (Stark et al., 1997). The debate about the benefits and losses of skilled migration, which is also known as the international equity problem (Mullan et al.1995) is a complex one and the costs and benefits of it have not been carefully studied yet (Miller, et al. 1998). Even Bhagwati himself, who has strongly associated brain drain with negative consequences for sending countries, has concluded that neither position (pros and cons) accurately reflects reality and that migration need not to worsen the welfare of the non-migrating population (Bhagwati, 1983). Mountford (1995) has argued that a brain drain can paradoxically increase the productivity of an economy where productivity is a function of the average level of human capital. Mountford says the paradoxical positive effect of a brain drain on productivity occurs when successful emigration is not a certainty, and when the increase in human capital accumulation by people wishing to become eligible to emigrate causes a change in the long run income distribution, which outweighs the decrease in human capital caused by the brain drain itself (Mountford, 1995). In Goldfarb et al. (1984), it was argued that for some countries (poorer countries) it even pays better to train scientists and engineers for export as the proportions of their earnings that will be remitted to the sending country outweigh the losses resulting from their migration. More recently, the literature seems to have moved from viewing migration as one-way path from one location to another, into a more dynamic process of networking and linkages. Gaillard & Gaillard (1998) have made an important observation in this context talking about on the notion of brain circulation as a 11

14 positive form of scientists [as well as other highly skilled professionals ]mobility between the north and the south. This strand of research is focused mostly on the stay rate of foreign students from the south in the north, e.g. Chinese students staying in the US (Zweig & Chan, 1995). In particular, the interest is in the extent of professional contacts expatriate scientists from the south develop and form with their home countries. A survey by Zweig and Chen (1995) has indicated that more than 31% of Chinese scientists who remain in the US have relatively frequent contacts with their home institutions in China. Likewise, in a recent study by Annalee Saxenian (1999), it was found that Indian and Chinese scientists maintain extensive professional relationships with other institutions in their home countries. Saxenian (1999) found, for instance, that Chinese and Indian migrants tend to shuttle between their home and host countries, becoming more or less transnational citizens. The migration of Chinese and Indians differs from that of Europeans by being more of a link than a path. In other words, Chinese and Indian migrants use their migration as an opportunity to set up business (and increasingly technological) links between the host and the home country, and thus migrating does not necessarily mean burning the vessels and breaking the relationship with the home country. European migration (apart from southern Europe perhaps), however, tends to be a one way path towards a new life cut off from that of home. Thus, the debate about south-north brain drain has started to shift from its traditional win-lose deterministic approach to a more dynamics and casedependent approach. The effect of Mobility on labour markets Pearson (1995) and Stein et al. (1996) identify shortages of certain expertise in local labour markets as among main motives for recruitment from abroad, especially, employers seeking candidates with highly specialized skills. A group 12

15 of studies has focused on individual professions within the labour markets for highly skilled personnel, such as: medical practitioners (Miller et al. 1998), IT professionals, and bankers (Beaverstock, 1994). In the medical profession, Miller et al.(1998) found that there are variety of reasons why internationally trained physicians may elect to emigrate [to the US]. These include the high regard for which the US is held in terms of technological development, the quality of its medical schools, its specialist training and its commitment to fundamental biomedical research (Ibid., p264). However, in the banking and finance profession, Beaverstock (1994) found that expatriate bankers are attracted to certain global cities because of the concentration of financial and producer service jobs available within them, in addition to other important soft factors such as the cultural and convivial affinities of these cities (Ibid., p. 336). Most recently, migration of skilled IT labour (particularly, engineers) became the center point of many studies, particularly, in the US and Canada. Most of this stream of studies is quantitative in type with some confirming the shortages of IT laborers due to emigration (Voretz & Laryea, 1998) or calling for more immigration (Virginia Tech, 1998) and other denying shortages and calling for reducing skilled immigration (North, 1995; Gover & Hurray, 1998). In general and across all highly skilled professions, there are those who argue that the entry of foreign-born scientists and engineers into a country has the effect of reducing the increase in salaries for native engineers and scientists (North, 1995). Furthermore, it is believed that the use of foreign skills provides less incentive to train the natives (Gover & Hurray, 1998). Therefore, while the benefits of scientists immigration are distributed widely in a society, the cost is borne by a small group, namely, native scientists (Freeman, 1997). In precise terms, while immigrant scientists benefit universities and high-tech companies by increasing their quality, they may lower scientists wages. This might, in turn, reduce the incentives for doing a Ph.D. for prospective students (Zacher, 1997). 13

16 However, comparing across professions within science and engineering, Mark Regets (1997) has found no evidence of supporting the anti-immigration arguments echoed above. Regets (1997) found that improved labour market conditions and higher earnings existed in fields with large percentages of foreign scientists in the US, with only few exceptions-such as physics. Overseas scientists are attracted primarily by rapidly improving fields, thus, contributing to the improvement of labour market conditions in that field. Additionally, Regets (1997) has argued that foreign and domestic scientists may not necessarily be substitutes for each other due to differences in aptitude and methods of study between individuals and between educational systems. This is also indicated by a study from Australia that showed the enormous differences between skilled immigrants groups in finding employment and competing in the receiving country (Hawthorne, 1997). Hawthorne however ascribes these differences to discriminatory behaviour by local employers towards non-european immigrants and non-native speakers of English (Ibid.). Whatever the pro and con arguments with regards scientists immigration are, the major immigrants receiving countries such as the US, Canada, and Australia are competing for these immigrants (Cobb-Clark & Connolly, 1997). Those who have argued in favour of skilled immigration have highlighted the fact that the receiving country benefits largely from having a pool of scientists that it did not have to train at the undergraduate level; and that its research institutions and its industry benefit from having lower cost researchers than they might ordinarily have had (Bhagwati & Rao, 1996; Simon, 1994; Hsiao, 1997). Additionally, foreign-born scientists provide a link between the local research environment and the global one, which could improve the research quality of the receiving country (Regets, 1997). 14

17 Chapter 2 The Study plan and objectives In this study, the migration and mobility of highly skilled workers, in general, is firstly introduced and that of scientists and academics, in particular, is then studied. I start by an examination and analysis of scholarly works in a number of streams of research that have dealt in a way or another with the international mobility of professionals. These include studies (1) on brain drain and its positive and negative impacts; for instance, on the one hand, the loss of locally trained highly skilled persons and the services they would have otherwise provided to their societies, while on the other hand, the positive impact of brain circulation on knowledge and business transfer between the home country and the diaspora. There are additionally (2) the studies on emerging transnational boundary-less identities and global cultural networks and the rise of global spaces for certain practices and particular professions. And finally, there is (3) the study of the micro dynamics of a prominent group of professionals that exist and operate in a more or less one global social and cultural space- namely, scientists and academics. This is done primarily through examining existing large research materials on the sociological structure and dynamics of the scientific communities. My research then goes beyond literature and theory scrutinizing to investigate empirically the mobility of scientists and academics within the broader world of science. It looks specifically into scientific and academic mobility to a country with a long and strong historical tradition of science and scientific mobility, namely, the United Kingdom. Patterns of academic inflows to the UK academic system are investigated. Additionally, guided by various theories from the sociology of science, the study then goes further into an in-depth study of the University of Oxford, as prominent scientific and academic site in the UK, and its population of foreign scientists and academics. Apart from being a Ph.D. 15

18 dissertation, the study does have a further objective that lies beyond being a successful Ph.D. dissertation by seeking to lie the foundation for a further more extensive work on other types of professions that are similar to science in terms of being both global in their scope and in being celebrity and fame driven, such as business and management consulting. The importance of such work lies in that the distribution and the availability of highly skilled professionals will depend increasingly on certain dynamics that are specific to particular professions, and which are outcome to the interactions of certain spatial, cultural, and sociological factors. This Study Our focus here is on the mobility of one group of highly skilled professionals namely, scientists and academics. The main objective is to successfully explain the international mobility of academics and scientists and their geographic distribution across the globe through a sociological and cultural analysis of the scientific/academic profession. Scientists and academic provide the backbone of any knowledge-based sector in the economy. For instance, in the biotechnology sector, Zucker, Darby, and Brewer (1996) have found that, the growth and diffusion of intellectual human capital was the main determinant of where and when the American biotechnology industry developed [ ] Intellectual human capital tended to flourish around great universities. It is, thus, important to know what triggers scientists movement? What are the push and pull factors? And what are the underlying dynamics for their mobility? These are only some of the questions that need to be answered for our understanding of the phenomenon. For to be able to unfold the complex making of the phenomenon, the persons, the institutions, and the scientific disciplines involved should become under scrutiny. Those three levels of analysis and investigation are, thus, needed to capture the overall structure of the 16

19 phenomenon. Scientists travel to places within their own nation-state, between nation-states located within the same continent, and between nation-states located within different continents. In this dissertation, I will be arguing that apart from economic, personal, or political factors, science-specific factors such as prestige, recognition, and credibility influence the distribution of international flows of scientists around the world. For instance, scientific sites (e.g. universities) with longer history of excellence and prestige enjoy an advantage over other sites in attracting foreign scientists and, as a result, the international exchange of scientists take place predominantly between prestigious institutions. This can have numerical implications for regions and countries who seek to become, or remain, competitive in the of world of science, and of the world knowledge in general. The prestige and excellence of organizations, however, vary according to the disciplines one is looking into. Various literatures from the sociology of science indicate that scientists seek to enhance their scientific credibility and their recognition among their peers by joining prestigious scientific institutions (Crane 1965; Long, 1978; Debackere & Rappa, 1995). Likewise, scientific institutions seek to enhance their reputation and credibility within the scientific community through attracting and hosting exceptional scientific talent (Geuna, 1996). Furthermore, scientific disciplines differ in their geographic distribution and in their ' centers' and peripheries. The main hypothesis that drives and stands at the front of this study is therefore the following: international flows of scientists to any country enter mainly through established prestigious scientific sites that enjoy a long history of excellence, credibility, and prestige attached to them in their respective fields The logic implications of this hypothesis implies thus the following: 17

20 i ii- Prestigious scientific and academic sites are the main magnets of foreign scientific and academic talent in a country. Academics and scientists migrate only to foreign prestigious scientific and academic sites. To test these hypotheses, the study sheds the light on the inflows of foreign scientists to the UK and uncovers the underlying dynamics behind their patterns of distribution across UK universities and the push and pull factors behind their mobility. Yet, in order to reduce, as much as possible, the effect of non-science factors, such as political (e.g. political oppression, wars, etc.) and economic factors (e.g. poverty, large differences in living standards, etc.), it focuses on the inflows of scientists to the UK from other industrialised nations only. Study aims and objectives The objective of the study is to unfold the dynamics of international flows of scientists: Why do scientists travel? What make them select their destinations? Why do the host sites attract them? And what impacts do they have on the host sites? While doing so, it draws upon notions derived from both the sociology and the geography of science. The main theme is that through mobility science engenders its own physical and social geography, arguing that science dynamics determine to a large extent the international extension of scientific networks. Thus, based on the inflows of scientific personnel to the academic establishment of the United Kingdom (UK), the study seeks to investigate the genesis of the scientific migration process, the push and pull factors affecting the international mobility of scientists, and why do some scientists leave their home countries to ply their talents in some far off scientific sites? And why are they drawn in particular to certain places than others? 18

21 In answering these questions, the study looks into the organization of science itself, for instance, into the role of prestige, quality of research, and the location of scientific activities as attributes that affect a scientist decision to take an appointment overseas. For instance, doing research at one of the most prestigious scientific sites in a given scientific discipline can be for some equivalent to a ' finishing school', that is to say, if you can succeed at such a place and prove yourself then you can make it to the top in your field. Thus, associating one s self and one' s research with a highly prestigious scientific site could well act like a ' shop-window in which the individual scientist could display his/her talent to the rest of the world of his/her discipline. Thus, an important ultimate goal of the study is to uncover the factors that contribute to the making of internationally attractive scientific sites. Why are certain scientific sites more attractive to scientists to work at than others? Why certain scientific sites continue to act as ' centers of gravity in an increasingly globalised scientific system? Study Plan and methodology This study is a phenomenology study, that is to say, it is focused on understanding the essence and the underlying structure of a phenomenon. It is not focused in any one technique; data are collected through existing databases and through engendering new data by launching a small survey using questionnaires. The analysis of the data then looks for recurring patterns. The study is concerned primarily with the cultural context of the phenomenon, which is in other words, the effect of scientific culture of the international mobility of scientists. The study uses different sets of data (quantitative and qualitative), different types of analyses (sociological and geographical discourses are used), and different theoretical perspectives (sociological and geographical conceptualizations) to achieve its objectives. Some refer to this research approach as triangulation (Denzin, 1978), which 19

22 means that different theoretical perspectives are studied by using different types of analyses and different types of data in order to situate the phenomenon and locate it for the researcher and reader alike (Chenail, 1997). The advantage of combining qualitative and quantitative methods is that while quantitative surveys are an outstanding medium for gathering a breadth of information regarding "How many?" or "How much?" qualitative research is the best research method for discovering underlying motivations, feelings, values, attitudes, and perceptions. Therefore, in addition to gathering and analyzing data, I use questionnaires to gain further in-depth and understanding of the phenomenon under scrutiny and the data at hand. By establishing several sources of information, I hope that each source of information will potentially contribute to the identification of certain central facts supported by the convergence of evidence. Since as Yin (1994 ) views it a robust fact may be considered to have been established if evidence from three (triangulation) or more different sources all coincides. Yet, in order to get such convergence, I find it necessary to ask the same questions of the three or more sources. The study progresses as the following: In Chapter 3, having introduced in this chapter the various literatures on mobility and the various notions bestowed in them, I start constructing the theory of this dissertation. Scientific mobility is analyzed at (i) the level of the individual scientist and (ii) at the level of the scientific site. The notions of prestige, recognition and credibility in science are explored and ascribed a greater role as main drivers of scientists mobility. The main theme is that these are important drivers in science and that they display themselves through international mobility too. These notions are expressed both at the individual level and at the level of scientific sites. As what triggers scientific mobility? is a question that concerns and involves both the individual scientist and the scientific site. Other materialistic and soft factors are also touched upon as external factors driving scientific mobility. 20

23 In chapter 4, I embark on the first test of the hypothesis made in this thesis, namely, that the inflows of scientists from overseas go mainly through prestigious scientific sites in the UK. To test my hypothesis, I have obtained a customized database from the Higher Education Statistical Agency (HESA) on the inflows of foreign scientists from industrialized countries to UK universities. I then look at the distribution of these inflows across universities in the UK and observe the patterns of their distribution, especially, between old and new universities, and between high performers and low performers. Performance is measured by the scores awarded to the research conducted at these institutions by the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE), which is then introduced briefly and presented in a separate annex. When the results are analyzed and presented, I then give my comments on them and how they serve to support the hypothesis. In chapter 5, I then seek to support my hypothesis with more findings derived from a questionnaires-based survey of foreign scientists in the UK. Nevertheless, a major obstacle has appeared while trying to track down the names and addresses of these scientists, namely, the strict issue of confidentiality over personal information. Universities are not allowed to give out such personal information about their staff. After negotiating with several universities, only the university of Oxford has finally agreed to provide me with the information needed. As this university is a main attraction institution to foreign scientists, I use it as a case study to illuminate what makes this scientific site so attractive to foreign scientists. A case study is an ideal methodology when a holistic, in-depth investigation is needed, particularly in sociological studies, because they help in bringing out the details from the point of view of the participants (Tellis, 1997). It provides an opportunity for an indepth understanding of a situation, and its meaning for the people involved. Baring in mind the limitations of a case study in providing a statistical generalization, I use a case study here to provide rather, what Yin (1984) calls, 21

24 an analytic generalization. By analytic generalization Yin meant to compare the empirical results of a case study to a previously developed theory. I send out 200 questionnaires to identified foreign scientists at the University of Oxford via . The use of surveys has the advantages of being inexpensive, quick, and easier for data transfer. Given the time restriction while trying to contact the scientists before leaving to their summer holidays in July, the questionnaires, which are a modified version of already successfully employed ones, have been piloted on a number of colleagues at my host institute. The questionnaires are adopted, and slightly modified, from a study carried out on American scientists in France. However, I have chosen to test them with my colleagues at the IPTS whom themselves are expatriate scientists. In addition, I sought advice from an on-site supervisor at the IPTS regarding the quality of the questionnaires vis a vis the objectives of the study. In chapter 6, I employ what Erkisson (1986) called interpretative commentary to work on an overall evaluation of the research results and relate them to the main theory and hypothesis of the study. In order to do so, I look for constructs and concepts which may be inferred from the results and use them to explain the themes and the salient characteristics of the mobility phenomenon. Finally, I highlight the new inputs brought over by this study to theory. Finally, in chapter 7, I bring the results into a policy perspective. This is to say in a perspective in which policy makers at various levels can benefit from. I discuss for instance the pros and cons arguments for the effect of migrant scientists on the host and the home countries. I then approach the issue of scientists mobility within the global issue of international mobility of highly skilled professionals in general. 22

25 Concepts and Literature This section provides a general introduction to the literature that deals with the issue of international mobility of highly skilled workers. It provides an extensive literature review of various bodies of literature dealing with this subject. The benefits of a literature review are that it helps locating the position of this study in relation to other studies in the same area. Also the literature review highlights issues and approaches that are related to the international mobility of professionals in general but which are related to scientists too. For instance, I introduce studies of the international mobility of professionals with geographical, historical, sociological, labour markets, and development studies perspectives. This is because all these perspectives touch upon various aspects that are very important in trying to understand the international mobility of scientists. Indeed, the study moves on after to triangulate itself between the sociology of science and social geography. It therefore attempts to provide a theoretical analysis of the dynamics of scientific mobility using concepts from both social geography and sociology of science. The literature on the international migration of highly skilled professionals derives from a variety of disciplines in social sciences, most prominently though from human geography and sociology. This study, however, draws also on literature from the sociology of science to explain the geographic movements of scientists. I start firstly with introducing some of the methodological and conceptual problems in the study of international mobility of professionals. Secondly, I introduce the various explanations given in various literature to the mobility phenomenon. Thirdly, I introduce some major groups of highly skilled professionals and the main push and pull factors behind their mobility. Fourthly, I discuss the literature dealing with the effect of highly skilled migration on socio-economics development. And finally, I introduce and discuss the literature on the impact of highly skilled migration on various labour markets. 23