Migrating Minds

When Sandra Panchalingam finished her PhD studies at the University of Birmingham, she set her sights on the United States. "I knew that no matter how hard I worked in the United Kingdom, I would probably never get a chance to run my own lab," she says. "I always believed that in America, if you worked hard, there was an opportunity to reap the benefits. That's not always true in Europe." Now her postdoctoral training at the University of Maryland is winding down and Panchalingam is completing work under a US Department of Defense grant for breast-cancer research. So she is looking for a job. But she won't look in Europe. "It's a very closed system there," she says. "I have a lot of friends in the United Kingdom, but I might end up being a postdoc for 15 years. It's just not worth it." Panchalingam is exactly the type of person Europe wants to return to its shores. Since the end of World War II, the best and brightest British, French, and German graduate students have traditionally finished their studies in the United States and often remained, the trend reversed for a brief period in the late 1960s and early 1970s when many US researchers headed to Britain. Nevertheless, today, Greeks, Spaniards, and Eastern Europeans join the British in the States, along with a flood of students from the Indian subcontinent and China. Today's Europe, however, is not the same continent scientists fled five years ago. The most obvious difference is the European Union, a conglomeration of 15 countries, plus 13 others awaiting membership, that aim to unify their economic systems and government policies. Science and research policy has been transformed with the advent of the EU, and the issue of "brain drain," the loss of talented researchers to other countries, is a focal point of the EU's unification strategy. The Sixth Framework Programme, a five-year plan to boost the region's scientific community and make it competitive with the United States, is chock full of ideas and funding proposals to combat brain drain. The plan, which launches in October, calls for a funding increase for lower-level researchers, a new Internet portal for European research jobs, and even a program to help returnees with tax, visa, and family resettlement problems. The Isles Solution But will such a plan work? Some point to hopeful signs that it will. Ireland and Britain, which have revamped their scientific establishments to rival those in the United States, report some success. By tendering job vacancies to outside researchers and encouraging people to change jobs, both countries have successfully opened tightly controlled university systems. Many Sixth Framework tactics mimic the Irish and British programs. "If you look at Ireland, you see a lot of people coming back because we can provide them with the same type of situation they get in the States, and that's what we want to do throughout Europe," says Tom Casey, a director of the Dublin-based science consultancy Circa, which helped shape the Sixth Framework Programme. Yet as the views of Panchalingam and other emerging European scientists suggest, it's still an uphill climb. "The United States offers more money, a stronger scientific community, and a more open system," says Danuta Krotoski, fellowship coordinator for the Human Frontier Science Program in Strasbourg, France. "It's very difficult to compete with that." Nevertheless, the EU will try to make itself competitive. For years, the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) has invited collaboration with Asian and US scientists. But the sparkling gem in the EU crown is a framework initiative to make all members increase the percentage of gross domestic product spent on research and development to 3%, roughly equal to the amounts spent in the United States and Japan. Today, the EU estimates its member countries spend about 1.9% on R&D. Money alone won't solve the brain drain problem. "It's not really about money," says Jens Deggett, an official with the European Science Foundation, a continent-wide networking organization. "The infrastructure has to be in place to support the kind of science we want to get done." Many experts agree with Deggett. "Almost any European university or company can offer a comparable salary to what can be had in the United States," says Circa's Casey. "What we hear over and over again is that you can't get the same free and open environment here.... And you can't get the same support personnel. You can import the greatest mind of our time and he's worthless if he's not backed up by at least five great staff members." Requiring such staff to stay will not block brain drain. In fact, the EU intends to foster brain circulation, according to the head of the European Union's research human resources department, Joseph Jamar. "Right now it's a reflex for a scientist upon finishing his or her PhD to say, 'I'm going to the United States,'" he says. "We want to create a situation where mobility is encouraged and it's just as natural for that person to say, 'I'm coming back.'" The prohibition on movement is slackening, Jamar says. "Already it's becoming common to spend at least a year of your postdoctoral period in another European country," he says. "And the idea of moving from one university to another is now seen in a positive light." Krotoski of Human Frontier notes that, "Even with tenure, a [US] scientific job is not guaranteed. In Europe, once you're in, you're a government employee for life. There's little incentive to travel or to spend time in another lab." Marlene J. ViolaThe Science Melting Pot Erasing Red Tape The European Research Area, a plan to turn Europe into one labor market for researchers, might help free scientists to move. Although such a market exists on paper, the proverbial red tape slows collaboration. "You get a researcher from Singapore who comes here to collaborate with European colleagues and he has to get a different visa for each border he crosses," says the EU's Jamar. "The idea of the European Research Area is that there are no borders when it comes to research." While such a plan looks appealing, it could have serious negative consequences. Italian and Spanish institutions, for instance, might lose critical researchers who would head to northern Europe where salaries are higher. "The divide between Southern and Northern Europe is a real problem in that regard," says Circa's Casey. In a study he did with Sami Mahroum, another Circa director, he found that only two of 100 emerging European life scientists interviewed had done postdoctoral fellowships or sabbaticals along the continent's southern rim. Eastern European countries have even more to lose. Take Albania, which is not an EU member. More than 35% of all Albanians with advanced degrees have left the country in the last 10 years, according to Capajev Gjokutaj, the head of the Tirana branch of the Soros Foundation. The exodus is especially heartbreaking, according to Gjokutaj, because most of the emigrants prefer to work as cabdrivers and clerical workers in European capitals than as researchers in Albania. Even Western Europe has suffered a shortfall of human capital. According to a 1995 National Science Foundation report, more than 17,000 European-born PhDs work in the United States. More than 11,000 have become US citizens and another 3,900 are permanent residents. Most of the remainder hold student visas. If historical trends hold up, about half the European postdoctoral fellows will remain in the United States to start their careers as independent scientists, according to the NSF. Department of Labor statistics say that 70% of British postdoctoral fellows remain in the United States, while 25% of Germans stay. Although few statistics examine the phenomenon in relation to life scientists, the Department of Labor did find that some 65% of British researchers remain in the United States. Statistics regarding mobility within the European Union are more difficult to come by. "One of the first steps in encouraging mobility and combating brain drain is to gather good statistics on the phenomena, because we don't have them right now," Jamar says. Recruitment Efforts While the Sixth Framework Programme is new, the campaign to bring science émigrés back home is not. Until now, though, each European state has run its own program for rewarding native sons and daughters who want to return. But such programs have accomplished little, Casey says. "They've paid exorbitant sums for Nobel prize winners who really just want a nice place to retire," he adds. He recalls one scientist who was granted a free apartment atop his department's building in Ireland: He never produced important research. Still, some national programs are changing their stripes. The French government, for instance, recently updated a campaign to bring home French scientists. It now tempts recent postdocs, rather than senior researchers. A draft law, and centerpiece of the presidential campaign there, calls for an automatic yearly increase in all postdoc salaries. The statute, proposed by candidate Lionel Jospin, calls for higher salaries and a shortening of postdoctoral fellowships from three to two years. Courtesy of Detlef WeigelDetlef Weigel By far the most successful program for return, according to Krotoski and others, has been Germany's, which is centered on the Max Planck Institutes. These independent research centers, each attached to a traditional university, offer promising young scientists well-funded labs and freedom from teaching. The Max Planck program has led a high return rate of German postdocs. "The scientific system in the United States is unbeatable, but it's hard to get better than a directorship at the Max Planck," says Detlef Weigel, a professor at the Salk Institute of Biological Studies in La Jolla, Calif. who is returning to the Max Planck Institute of Developmental Biology in Tübingen, Germany, later this year. "Europe does have a lot to offer. I got sick of writing two or three grant proposals every year to get funded here [in the United States].... In Europe, once you've accomplished something, you get credit for it for a long time, not just for the next six or 12 months." Not every country can afford such an expensive system, which is why the Sixth Framework will fund programs to recreate conditions similar to those at Max Planck at a much smaller cost. "The aim is to eventually provide a framework that makes it realistic for people to return," Jamar explains. "It's not just offering them a job. You have to make them feel welcome, explain the tax system, help them with visa requirements and make arrangements for their whole family." The greatest irony of the European brain drain is that many scientists want to return to their homes; yet, with an aging population, the continent is undergoing a labor shortage. "Everyone wants to live where they grew up," Casey says. "That's the sad part of the problem: The jobs are there and the people want to come back under the right conditions." The Sixth Framework represents an attempt to create the right conditions to attract scientists to Europe. One day, Jamar predicts, US postdocs will flood European labs: "We want to attract the world's best researchers, wherever they are from." If the Sixth Framework is a success, it could be help spur a continent-wide economic resurgence. Weigel, who is returning with his family to Germany after 12 years in the United States, says he is in the vanguard of a movement. "The 90's was definitely America's decade," he says. "I think that with unification and the proper focus of resources, the next decade will be Europe's." Sam Jaffe (sam.jaffe@verizon.net)is a freelance writer in Philadelphia. Look Homeward, Angelika, But Stay in America Courtesy of Angelika Amon Angelika Amon often considers returning to Europe. Ten years ago, she accepted a US postdoctoral fellowship and now she runs her own lab at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "I'm happy here, but the thoughts of returning are always there," the 35-year-old Austrian says. "Especially now that I have a child and her grandparents are so far away." Yet Amon does not expect to be going home anytime soon. "I've built my own golden cage," says Amon, Linda and Howard Stern career development assistant professor of biology. "It took a lot of hard work to get here and I'm not going to give it up for nothing." For Amon, the EU system is too restrictive: "You have to always be fighting a bureaucratic system in Europe that controls what you do." Another sticking point in her view is a paucity of powerful women. "People complain about the role of women in science here and I tell them you don't know what it's like in Europe," says Amon, who supervises 13 people. "It's very hard to find a female in a position of power in European science." That doesn't mean she doesn't want to return. "I would move back in a second if I could find a position that gave me the same control as I have here." Crossing the Pond, Again Courtesy of Hugh Brady Hugh Brady abandoned a tenure-track position at Harvard University five years ago to accept a job in Ireland, and he rarely looks back. "I assumed it was going to be a success personally and a mistake professionally," he says. "I was right on the first count but completely wrong on the second." Brady expected to say goodbye forever to spacious labs and high-quality support staff. Again, he was wrong. Today, he heads the department of medicine and therapeutics at Mater Miseracordiae Hospital, part of the University College Dublin. The university's Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research, for which he is interim head, boasts sophisticated genomics tools, including a state-of-the-art oligonucleo-tide microarray facility some of his Harvard colleagues would envy. Brady attributes his success in part to an Irish government program designed to increase the country's research competitiveness. Since its inception in 1997, the program has provided Irish universities more than £2 billion (Irish) in grant money. And now professors must compete for their jobs. "It's a completely different system than it was even five years ago," he says. "People are doing exciting research and things have really opened up."

Migrating Minds

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