Trans-Atlantic Brain Drain Worries Europe's Policy Makers. (Perspectives: News and Views of the Current Research-Technology Management Scene

Europe is stepping up efforts to plug the drain of scientific talent to the United States. The European Union (EU) and several other European organizations have begun to implement a range of ambitious plans aimed at keeping top minds at home while luring others back to their native countries. While the trans-Atlantic brain drain may seem small in absolute numbers--only around 4 percent of European scientists, or some 400,000 of a total 11 million, work in the U.S., according to one conservative estimate--they are among the creme de la creme, ranging from brilliant young students to world-renowned superstars. Equally disturbing to European industrialists and policy makers, many of these researchers appear determined to stay. In its 2003 Report on Science and Technology, the European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, noted that over 70 percent of EU citizens who obtained doctorates in the U.S. from 1991 to 2000 no specific plans to return to the The commission warned that over 75 percent of European researchers who spent time working in the U.S. over the past decade chose to remain there rather than return. The top two EU countries exporting scientists to the U.S. are Germany and the United Kingdom. While Germany accounts for 35.9 percent of the European scientists in the U.S., the U.K. claims 31.9 percent, followed by Italy with 7.7 percent and France with 6.5 percent. Science Visa Proposed In a move to attract researchers back to Europe and keep other talented scientists from leaving the continent, policy makers in Brussels outlined in December several initiatives to enhance career development and ease working within the EU. For instance, the Commission will propose a scientific visa for the EU, allowing scientists to move within the region without having to obtain visas for each country. In addition, it aims to open about 400 so-called to help both European and foreign researchers and their families move to and around Europe. The centers will help with visas, social security, taxes, housing, language courses, and more. On top of that is the new European Researchers' Mobility Portal, providing information on new research programs and funding. These and other plans to lure scientists to Europe were the focus of a New York Academy of Science conference on the trans-Atlantic mobility of researchers sponsored by the Commission in December. Money will play a particularly big role, as it often does in attracting talent. The EU has agreed to boost funding for human resources and mobility schemes for researchers to 1.8 billion [euro] ($2.7 billion) by 2006, a 60 percent increase over pre-2002 levels. The money will go to a number of programs, such as the Marie Curie Actions and the Erasmus Mundus initiative beginning this year. Both of these programs award fellowships and grants to European and foreign scientists to study or work on the continent or conduct research elsewhere and bring knowledge back. Boost R&D Spending Such measures coincide with the Union's objective to increase its overall R&D spending to 3 percent of its Gross Domestic Product by 2010, a plan that, according to the Commission, could generate demand for 700,000 additional researchers by the end of the decade. Currently, the EU spends around 1.94 percent of its GDP on research, compared to 2.8 percent in the U.S. and 2.98 percent in Japan. The Commission blames the lower funding for R&D in the EU largely on the lower contribution of the private sector, representing only 56 percent of the total, against more than two-thirds in the U.S. and Japan. Another telling statistic: while in relative terms the EU produces more science Ph.D.s than its major industrial rivals, a smaller percentage of them are employed in the region's labor force. In 2000, for example, the EU had 2.14 million graduates compared with 2.07 million in the U. …