The Albanian scientific diaspora: can the brain drain be reversed?

ABSTRACT

Albania has one of the highest rates of emigration in recent decades in the world, part of which includes a substantial scientific diaspora, defined here as PhD-holders and PhD students currently living and working abroad. This article seeks answers to two sets of questions. First, what are the characteristics of this diaspora in terms of size, location, education, employment, and social capital? Second, what are the prospects for this brain drain to be reversed? What conditions would need to be in place for more scientists and professionals to return? Insights into these questions are gained via three methods: an online survey of 725 Albanian PhDs working and studying abroad; follow-up interviews with some of them, including representatives of diaspora organisations; and a small survey of human resource managers in Albanian universities. The Albanian scientific diaspora is relatively young, mainly located in OECD countries yet highly mobile between them, diverse in terms of field of study, and mainly employed in universities and research institutes. Members of the diaspora maintain close links to Albania, yet only a small minority realistically foresee return, due to a combination of economic and political obstacles.

KEYWORDS:

• Albania
• emigration
• brain drain
• scientific diaspora
• return migration

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. All the figures in this paragraph are from data compilations by the World Bank (2016, pp. 4, 10, 58).

2. The mission of this new structure is to promote cooperation and interaction with all Albanians abroad, partly with development in mind.

3. On the face of it, high-skilled migrants have the capacity to send higher amounts of remittances pro-capita as they are likely to be earning higher incomes than the lower-skilled. However, to the extent that highly skilled migrants are likely to come from elite or middle-class family backgrounds, the overall amounts sent may be much lower, even zero.

4. Many studies suggest that the majority of research students and scientists from developing and transitioning countries do not want or intend to return to the home countries, and hence do not eventually return. For instance, Meyer and Brown (1999, p. 8) estimate that only half of the foreign students obtaining a PhD or a post-doctoral fellowship in the USA and France return to their origin country within two years. Likewise, a more recent study of 464 Polish scientists working abroad found that only one in four respondents declared a wish to return to Poland (Czerniaswka, Bochińska, Oléskiewicz, & Mostowy, 2018, p. 12). And as a final example, from a country which has many parallels to Albania, scientific diaspora survey data from Moldova (N = 197) reveal differentiated intentions to return: students most likely (47% say they will return), followed by researchers (35%) and then professionals (28%): data from Tejada, Varzari, and Porcescu (2013, p. 168).

5. There is some resistance to the dilution of the core meaning of diaspora, notably by Brubaker (2005), who contends that the definition of diaspora has itself been ‘diasporised’, i.e. scattered and diminished.

6. Available on request from the authors.

7. This represents an almost 65% response rate, high for an online survey. Apart from simple non-returns, small numbers wrote back refusing to answer on the grounds that the questionnaire asked for personal information that they did not want to provide, or claiming that they were disappointed by the lack of cooperation shown to them by Albanian universities and research bodies.

8. This calculation is based on data from the ‘National Strategy on Science, Technology and Innovation’ (Strategja Kombëtare për Shkencën, Teknologjinë dhe Inovation 2017–2022), approved by the Council of Ministers 1 December 2017, where it is stated that the total number of academic staff in Albanian universities (public and private) is 3,209, of whom 1,909 (60%) have a PhD. Other PhD-holders in Albania will be working in other sectors of the state and the economy, or perhaps are outside the labour market.

9. All interviewees’ names are pseudonyms,

10. This affirmation must be tempered by the possibility that those who have failed to capitalise on their PhD qualification would be less likely to respond to the survey.

11. Percentages sum to more than 100 due to some respondents belonging to more than one type of association. Amongst the organisations mentioned were Alb-Shkenca (an association of Albanian diaspora scientists), Network of Albanian Academics in the Netherlands, Albanian Professionals in Washington DC, Albanian American Women’s Association, Network of Albanian Professionals in Britain, and Albanian-Canadian Community Association.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ilir Gëdeshi

Ilir Gëdeshi is an economist and Director of the Centre for Economic and Social Studies (CESS) in Tirana, Albania.

Russell King

Russell King is Professor of Geography in the School of Global Studies, University of Sussex and Visiting Professor of Migration Studies at Malmö University, Sweden.