International Mobility of Bioscientists: Trends and Perceptions, Country by Country

INTERNATIONAL MOBILITY OF BIOSCIENTISTS: TRENDS AND PERCEPTIONS, COUNTRY BY COUNTRY CHARLES V. KIDD* Common Themes In all countries, international communications, collaboration, and movement are considered to be not extraneous but an integral and increasingly important element of the world system of science. Standards of judgment of scientific quality and priorities are set on a worldwide basis, and sound judgments cannot be made without adequate communication; databases must, to an increasing degree, be built internationally; expensive resources must be financed and used on an international basis; young scientists must continue to be exposed to new scientific and cultural values and environments. Increasingly, the best people in given fields are dispersed throughout the world. The worldwide recession has led to downward pressures on national expenditures. Biomedical research and training budgets, as well as funds for general support of universities, have been adversely affected. A large share of the cost of collaborative research and of international movement of scientists is financed from these sources. The consequences include fewer fellowships, fewer resources for support of visiting scientists, fewer permanent academic posts, and a scarcity of funds for all kinds of research, including collaborative efforts. Nevertheless, most informed observers perceive that the levels and quality of collaborative research and of exchanges of scientists remain adequate, although not entirely satisfactory, particularly for younger scientists. The fact that in virtually all major countries few new permanent academic posts are available is the most significant factor inhibiting the mobility of younger scientists. The tendency of young scientists to remain at the university where they secured their advanced degree rather than to move to another university or to take a postdoctoral appoint- *American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1333 H Street, Room 1066, Washington, D.C. 20005.© 1986 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. 003 1 -5982/86/2932/10 1 .00 Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 29, 3, Part 2 ¦ Spring 1986 | S21 ment abroad is increasing. This tendency exists at all levels, from postdoctorate to full professor. The "chair" system oforganizing universities is a powerful force against mobility of leading professors. The system of departmental organization with numbers of full professors and a rotating chairmanship tends to encourage mobility. Adverse effects on mobility are only one (and not the most important) consequence of this shortage of posts. Mobility is not a solution for a lack of jobs. Lack of internal mobility and other central domestic-sciencepolicy issues are perceived by European and Japanese observers to be more important problems than are trends in international mobility of scientists. Examples of other key domestic issues include prospective declines in university enrollment; establishment of research priorities; relations among governments, industry, and universities in research and development ; and a scarcity of permanent academic posts. The more divergent governmental policies are with respect to the roles of government and private industry in developing marketable technologies, and the closer areas of research in various countries are to producing commercially valuable products, the greater the difficulties in arranging formal international collaboration in the biosciences. The most significant differences are between research in the biosciences as a whole and research in the clinical sciences as a whole. Among the older generation of scientists in Italy, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, almost all spent time in the United States (in the 1950s and 1960s). This is no longer the case, but the decline is considered normal and simply the natural result of the explosive development ofEuropean laboratories during the 1960s and 1970s—growth that has now virtually ceased. Maintenance of a 40year tradition of exchanges with the United States in the biosciences is considered to be important by a large number of scientists and administrators in European countries. The best laboratories in the world continue to attract scientists from other countries. In the biomedical fields, with rare exceptions, sophistication of ideas is a stronger magnet than sophistication of equipment. But fewer younger scientists from the United States who wish to study abroad have U.S. funds, and this imposes an increasing burden on European laboratories as their budgets level off or decline. The development of stronger biomedical laboratories in Europe, Australia , Canada, and Japan has made movement to the United States less...