Abstract
Global mobility and migration of scientists is an important modern phenomenon with economic and political implications. As scientists become ever more footloose it is important to identify general patterns and regularities at a global scale and how it impacts a country’s scientific output. The analysis of mobility and brain circulation patterns at global scale remains challenging, due to difficulties in obtaining individual level mobility data. In this work we trace intercity and international mobility through bibliographic records. We reconstruct the intercity and international mobility network of 3.7 million life scientists moving between 5 thousand cities and 189 Countries. In this exploratory analysis we offer evidence that international scientist mobility is marked by national borders and show that international mobility boosts the scientific output of selected countries.
Highlights
Scientists are highly mobile professionals, especially in the early phase of their careers
We address through an exploratory analysis three questions addressing how cities and countries are affected by international scientist mobility
Global cities as hubs Which cities are at the centre of the exchange of life scientists? How do different countries fare in this comparison? To answer these question, we look at the topological centrality of cities in the international mobility network extracted as described before
Summary
Scientists are highly mobile professionals, especially in the early phase of their careers. Note that in A0 the output contains the production of those individuals who will leave the country L0 in the second period and A1 the production of those that will come in the second period I1 Based on this breakdown, we can define indicators identifying the growth due to the four mobility types, i.e., S, D, I and L. The contribution to the national scientific output is positive for most countries, with several exceptions like Argentina, India and Israel, to name a few In this comparison, China stands out, with an astonishing growth rate of 141% overall and 158% due to international exchanges. For example the scientific output growth of China, India, Argentina, Russia and Switzerland has a weight of more than 20% (wI > 0.2), suggeseting a strong exposure to international mobility From these statistics, a picture emerges that certain countries are more exposed than others, and the gain is not unequivocally positive. These measures do, offer a first-level approximation of the primary beneficiaries of international scientific mobility
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