Europe slow in stemming 'brain drain' to America

BARCELONA, Spain -- The United States sucks in people and products from the rest of the world like a swirling drain. But while other nations love to sell their wares to affluent Americans, they do not enjoy losing to the United States one of their most valuable resources: scientific brainpower.

SNIP

Currently, the EU spends less of its GDP on research (1.9 percent) than its main competitors -- the United States (2.8 percent) and Japan (3 percent). Raising its commitment to 3 percent would finance some 400,000 new jobs for scientists each year.

But so far, only a handful of countries, including Sweden and Finland, have met the pledge. Stagnant economies have stalled the initiative -- to the point where France actually reduced spending on research and recruitment of young scientists in 2003.

Go here for the full story:
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/03293/232608.stm

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The situation has improved a little, as the new US-immigration laws stop many scientists.

The Brain-Drain is a problem in the nations themselves too; for example this map shows the average IQ of German army recruits by region(the draft is still alive and well):
http://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,300569,00.jpg
(white below average -> red above average).

... having with stem cell research. We'd be in even more of a lead if the religious nuts didn't have such influence over the current admin. At least gov't funds are all thats off limits though. And thats not good, but it is probably more likely the real brekthroughs will come from the private sector. Thats where the big money is and I assume thats why 'they' keep coming here. If European countries think they can 'finance' a tech industry they're kidding themselves. They need to get the gov'ts nose out of everything and let the marketplace do its magic. We have a similar problem here, but not to the extent that European countries do. Until they learn that they will continue to lag and their best and brightest will continue to escape to the U.S., which is fine by me.

And thats not good, but it is probably more likely the real brekthroughs will come from the private sector. Thats where the big money is and I assume thats why 'they' keep coming here.

You sound a bit like a libertarian. Government supported research does do really nice things. Just look at all the wonderful things that come out of MIT!

Research usually goes in two phases. First you do a bunch of academic work and once that cools off people in the private sector try to use those ideas. The key is to set standards inbetween these two events.

You need some public research and some private stuff. And NO the breakthroughs don't all happen in the private sector, at least not for Computer Science. Universities produce theories, proofs, math, and algorithms. Microsoft produces jack crap.

Are the place where much of the theoretical work is done, most often for little or not money, which is then used by industry. Not all that work, of course, but there are also groups of profs and former students who go into industry who sometimes work together, with those former students often starting out making more than their former profs.

Industry funds profs' applicable research well (and American Universities use grad students and post docs like indentured labor btw, but theoretical researchers do not get the rewards for their work to the degree that those who use it do. To get to the applicable, however, you first have to do the theoretical.

Btw, the stereotypes of the easy "ivory tower" life are lies. In the manuals for new profs, I've read them tell these new profs that if they expect to get tenure, they cannot expect to work a mere forty hours.

In addition, their teaching and research is not enough. They also have to bring money into the university by getting grants from corporations or institutions which fund research and in turn pay for equipment and staff.

As in most other areas of American life, the military heavily influences what sort of work gets funded, in many areas of hard sciences.

is very largely under-reported. I've seen a few brief stories on this, and it's sobering to consider that there's scarcely a single university of any magnitude whose research is not being shaped in one way or another by the Pentagon.

Right now, there is a large, large, shortage of American graduate students in the Hard Sciences. I'm sure many of you DU'ers who go to college, realize that the TA's (and many profs) have an accent, sometimes hard to understand.

This ties into the fact that the US as of now is based on a 'consumption' economy, where more and more is better; naturally, students tend to go into the professions where the most money is made. This leaves academia out in the cold.

with many of the hard sciences not providing funding for grad students. It is really surprising to find out, even in engineering, how few students are funded. AFter paying for 4, more likely 5, years of undergrad, many students don't have the means to pay for more. So they take some crappy job, or a decent job and forgoe further education.

Some of that certainly ties into you consumption economy, but I think the consumption influence would be far less if more funding were available.

conclude that the smart Europeans were leaving for the USA because their facist liberal Democatic politicians were grabbing all of their guns and the only way they would be safe would be to come to the USA and have their second amendment rights defended. My mistake.

Ooops, I left that part out...sorry