Faced with Loss of Scientists to West, Moscow Must Recruit Them from Asia and Latin America, HSE Study Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 29 – Russia is now at risk of losing so many scholars especially in the natural sciences who are leaving to work in Western countries that Moscow must seek to compensate by recruiting scientists from other less advanced countries, according to a new study by the HSE Institute for Statistical Research and Economics of Knowledge.

            In what constitutes an admission that current trends are likely to continue and that Moscow is unlikely to be able to control the departure of many of its scholars to advanced countries, HSE scholars say in a new book that Russia can perhaps compensate for their loss by recruitment in India, Southeast Asia and Latin America (iq.hse.ru/news/606167288.html).

            Indeed, they argue that Russia has no choice but to recruit in these places if it is not going to fall further behind Western researchers because the sanctions pressure on Russia are likely to continue well into the future and mean that ever fewer Russians who may be studying or working abroad will return home.

            It is unclear how effective any such Russian campaign would be, but the fact that some intellectual leaders in the Russian capital are even making this argument shows that officials and scholars there are worried about the brain drain and are prepared to take this and other radical steps to try to counter it.