Russia’s Real Brain Drain Involves People Leaving Science rather than Scientists Leaving the Country, Analysts Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 10 – The media in Russia and abroad have focused on the brain drain that Russia has suffered as a result of scientists leaving Russia for foreign countries, but the real brain drain in the country is elsewhere and involves the order of magnitude larger number of Russians who had been working in science but now have left for other professions.

            That is the conclusion of Russians who have looked into the situation, and they say that Moscow’s failure to address this issue is costing the country even more than its high profile concerns about the number of scientists who have left the country because of repression and the war in Ukraine (publizist.ru/blogs/117734/46529/- and t.me/tolk_tolk/16883/).

            Unless something is done to stem this second “brain drain,” Russia’s future as a center of scientific research is doomed and far sooner than anyone focusing on the number of scientists fleeing abroad imagines, these observers suggest.