Migration patterns of scientific personnel in Belarus and Russia

Abstract

The paper presents an approach to studying cross-border mobility of scientists basedon the analysis of bibliometric information. The initial information was compiled by publications of Belarusian and Russian scientists in journals indexed by the Web of Science database. The basic hypothesis of the study is based on the assumption that if a scientist hasbeen published for several years as an employee of the domestic (i.e. Belarusian, Russian)organizations, and then had an affiliation with foreign institutions, then it has signs of migra-tion abroad and carries out scientific activities outside of Belarus/Russia. For the Republicof Belarus, all areas of science are considered without restrictions; migration activity of Russian scientists is analyzed in mathematical and social sciences. The results of applying the bibliometric approach made it possible to form five patterns of scientific personnel migration. For example, Belarusian scientists are mostly characterized by pendulum migration and episodic contacts, to a lesser extent – traditional migration; forRussian scientists in the field of mathematical and social Sciences – circular and irrevocablemigration. In addition, during the reviewed time interval (from 2008 to 2019), no large-scale“brain drain” was detected from both Belarus and Russia.