EmailA colleague at my institution recently invited a scientist with a "foreign-sounding" name to deliver a seminar. Foreign, yes, but not to my ears – immediately I knew that this was an Israeli. As fate would have it, not only did I recognise the name as Israeli, but I recognised the name – and remembered the face.
It turns out that the invited speaker, now a faculty member and independent researcher at Brown University in Rhode Island, did his undergraduate studies with me a quarter of a century ago (that sounds awful!) in Jerusalem at the Hebrew University. While this was certainly an interesting twist of fate – small world, smaller scientific world – it puts the spotlight on the issue dubbed as "the brain drain".
In addition to his regular neuroscience seminar at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, my long-lost acquaintance and I agreed to participate in a discussion entitled "Academics without borders: Israeli scientists in the US", sponsored by the Schwalb Center for Israel and Judaic Studies at the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO), and hosted by Dr Curtis Hutt (Religious Studies, UNO) and Dr. Moshe Gershovitz (History Department, UNO).
Dr Gilad Barnea gave a superb and very entertaining overview of the topic, peppered with humorous stories from personal experiences. He discussed, for example, his positive scientific interactions with a religious Muslim woman, and how common goals in science allow the bridging of geopolitical gaps. If I had to summarise his talk in a sentence or two, I would characterise it as an accurate depiction of the international flavor of science. He highlighted the truly international and collaborative nature of "science without borders". My humble job at this event was to serve as "respondent", and given the clarity of the main talk, I had an easy job in merely saying a few words to reinforce Gilad's ideas.
Behind the international nature of science itself, of course, are the people. So it's important to note that approximately two-thirds of all Israeli scientists work outside Israel (and there are more Israeli faculty in the US than in Israel). That's a serious issue for a small country whose primary resource is in its "hi-tech" and "research and development" output.
How did this situation occur? According to Dr Dan Ben-David, Professor of Public Policy at Tel Aviv University, as a young country Israel realised the importance of education and academics, and between 1948 and the mid-70s, Israel managed to reach the same proportion of teaching and research staff per capita as the US. However, between 1978 and 2005, while the US increased its proportion by 29%, Israel dropped investment by 35%. This goes a long way to explaining Israel's brain drain.
However, the issue of brain drain is not restricted to Israel and has negatively affected a huge number of countries across the globe – and greatly benefited science in the US. At least until now.
When I was a postdoctoral fellow (1998–2003) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), international scientists who came to work at the NIH were given special visas that stipulated that after five years of training, the scientist would be required to return to his/her home country for two full years. Unless: a) The scientist had a scientific job offer in the US, and, b) The home country provided a letter waiving the requirement of the scientist to return to their home country. This ensured that the blame for any brain drain could not be dropped onto the lap of the US government, because without that waiver letter from the home country, the US government could not keep the foreign scientists in this country.
At that time in the early 2000s, to the best of my understanding (in speaking with many international postdocs from different countries), most postdocs had no trouble getting such waivers. In fact, back then, I think only Chinese postdoctoral fellows met with some resistance (and since that time, it appears that the resistance has been dropped). However, I managed to undergo my own desperate drama along the way.
Although I was born in the US, it was coincidental – my father was doing a residency in Cleveland, Ohio – and my family was essentially from Canada. In fact, I was naturalised as a Canadian citizen when I turned 12 or 13. Later, having moved to Israel, I was again naturalised. So when my wife and I applied for postdoctoral positions at NIH, I had no idea that I (born in the US) and my wife and daughter (as dependents) had any claim on US citizenship. In fact, I had read that naturalisation to a foreign country and serving in a foreign military were both grounds for loss of US citizenship. So like my wife and daughter, I also applied for a visa. My wife received hers – but my daughter and I were denied visas, because of our status as potential US citizens.
To condense a long and complex story, by providing a copy of a birth certificate, I was finally issued a temporary 1-year US passport (while my wife had her visa). It was our three-month-old daughter who caused us to make six trips in two weeks to the US consulate, combined with pleading, begging and cajoling, that finally led to authorisation to bring her along. After all the pressure and stress, when we finally arrived at customs and immigration in Washington, DC, with three completely different sets of paperwork – a temporary US passport, weird visa status for my family, a dog, and all of our worldly goods – I was extremely nervous about whether we would be allowed into the US.
The immigration officer, however, did not blink. He merely looked up at me, stamped the temporary passport, and said "Welcome home, Sir". Of course, that coined the phrase that later became the title of my novel "Welcome Home, Sir", about an American/Israeli scientist in the US with post traumatic stress disorder, who struggles with issues of dual identity.
Returning now, 10 years later, to the issue of brain drain, it seems as though the tide is turning. Or the drains are becoming clogged. The failure of the NIH budget to increase with the increasing number of US scientists has led to a situation where international postdocs no longer necessarily see the US as the place to be. Ten years ago, as a postdoc, I noted that Japanese and German postdocs in the US almost inevitably returned to their home countries. Today, even postdocs from countries whose science infrastructure is not as developed as that in the US (or Japan and Germany) are not so eager to stay in the US. Indian postdocs are opting for positions in India. Chinese postdocs are opting for opportunities in China's growing universities. And these two countries are only noted as examples of a wider trend.
Perhaps, globally speaking, this may be good for a number of countries who have suffered from brain drain. However, it symbolises an increasingly frustrating situation for US science. If the pipes are not soon unclogged, even US-born scientists will soon be seeking careers in other countries. It's not hard to estimate the damage to the US that this will cause.
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