Усс Ангелина Сергеевна, ст. преподаватель Рябикина Е. В.

Ростовский Государственный Экономический университет («РИНХ»), Россия

Brain Drain

Brain Drain refers to the emigration (out-migration) of knowledgeable, well-educated and skilled professionals from their home country to another country. This can take place because of several factors. The most obvious is the availability of better job opportunities in the new country. Other factors that can cause brain drain include: war or conflict, health risks, and political instability.

Brain drain occurs most commonly when individuals leave less developed countries (LDCs) with fewer opportunities for career advancement, research, and academic employment and migrate to more developed countries (MDCs) with more opportunities. However, it also occurs in the movement of individuals from one more developed country to another more developed country.

Recently, the Russian government has been paying increased attention to science and education, primarily as part of its declared modernization program, and also as part of the ongoing review of the Russia-2020 government strategy. This stems mainly from the realization that the foundation of the modern economy and world is the knowledge-based economy. Consequently, science and education issues are becoming crucial for Russia, especially if it wants to remain competitive on the global scale.

It should be noted that the intellectual and innovative potential of Russian researchers and engineers remains high and in-demand, but, unfortunately, they most often find opportunities to carry out their projects and ideas in other countries. The Nobel Prize in Physics 2010 was awarded to our compatriots Konstantin Novoselov and Andre Geim. These scientists do not represent the era of Soviet nuclear physics of the 1950s; they were awarded the Nobel Prize for current research. They both graduated from Russian universities, which laid the foundations for their research, but they both currently work abroad. 

This is why one of Russia’s key goals is to create an efficient system that will stop brain drain and foster technologically advanced and socially attractive conditions for developing, patenting and implementing scientific and innovative projects inside the country. 

The Skolkovo innovation center is already becoming an important part of the system. But it is also clear that a single center cannot prevent brain drain. Russia must create an entire network of innovative growth centers in many of its regions. Prime Minister Putin and the new management of the Strategic Initiatives Agency understand this, as they’ve made clear in their public statements.

In the past decade, Russia has been witnessing a very dangerous trend: with the growing popularity of higher education in general, the demand for Ph.D. programs is declining; and competition for these programs is falling off even at many of the country’s leading universities. To a significant degree, this is due to the fact that Ph.D. programs in Russia are not attached to big research projects and innovative production.

Between January and August 2014 more than 200,000 people left Russia, according to Russia’s Federal Statistics Agency. This number is much higher than for the first eight months in 2013, which saw about 121,000 people emigrating from Russia. In 2014, Russians were most often emigrating to the U.S., Germany, Canada and Finland.

Economists and businessmen attending the forum, including Sucher, agree that the Russian authorities should create a system that encourages both private business and young people to stay in Russia.

From the report of the statistical office shows that Russians mainly leave for the United States ("migration gain", i.e. the difference between who came from that country and left it, here negative -644), Germany (-588), Canada (-347) and Finland (-283).

At the present moment the "brain drain" from Russia is awesome character. First we need to create conditions for work. Proper methods to prevent the dangerous trend two: stimulating and restraining. So, it is possible to implement a complete ban on travel abroad, to return system of distribution of graduates, ban on travel abroad of members of certain professions, etc. on the other hand, or however, to raise salaries up to a certain high level and to fix, improve social benefits, to mitigate taxes, etc. In the Russian context, when the "brain drain" suffer from technical and natural scientific specialties, to support these areas and should focus. The ban in Russia has always been ineffective and in the long run will not bring result.

Finally, a huge country like Russia should pay special attention to regional level. It should set up research, innovative and production clusters at the regional level and use them as the foundation for its strategy of international cooperation. Creating research centers in Moscow alone (or in Skolkovo, which is a few kilometers from Moscow) will not turn the tide of brain drain. Moreover, in the 2000s, we saw the real and no less serious problem of internal brain drain in Russia, caused by the hypercentralization of research and production in Moscow and the growing gap between the capital and other regions of the country. When everyone who is able to is moving to Moscow, this poses a real threat to the future of Russian research and innovation. This is a problem not only for professional researchers, but also for the population in general

To successfully combat the "brain drain" should return left "luminaries" of science specialists, as well as the encouragement and support of scientists and specialists living in the homeland to continue the work. And of course, it is important statistically to know the rate and trend of "leakage". In Russia the highest officials of the state emphasized repeatedly the necessity of building a "knowledge economy", for this purpose, and the necessary privileges to innovative companies. The main form of support such business should of course be tax benefits. We should administer: tax credits for a period of three to five years; the release of innovative enterprises from the profit tax in first three years of activity; to introduce accelerated depreciation of fixed assets. In addition, the right to establish the requirement for public authorities about the extraordinary provision of innovative enterprises in the offices and lower rents.

Literature

1.        Georgy BovT Will Russia's Brain Drain Dry Up? 04.08.2015 http://www.themoscowtimes.com/opinion/article/will-russias-brain-drain-dry-up-op-ed/527001.html

 

2.        Oleg Barabanov COMBATING RUSSIAN BRAIN DRAIN, 09/08/2011,  http://valdaiclub.com/opinion/highlights/combating_russian_brain_drain/