Human Capital Multidisciplinary Research Center

4.4.2 Empirical Study of International Cooperation and Mobility of Specialists Employed in the Field of Science and Technology

Natalia Shmatko
Project Leader

Project period

2023-2025

Context of Research Project within a Subject of Human Capital

Research of human resources in the field of science and technology today is also on the agenda of reputable international organizations. Worldwide competition for the most talented and highly qualified personnel is intensifying, and maintaining many existing high-tech systems and infrastructures is becoming increasingly difficult due to problems with the quality of human capital.

In Russia, according to the trends of recent years, a situation is emerging in which, despite the reduction in the quantitative ‘brain drain’, there are qualitative losses - more qualified personnel and more highly cited scientific authors leave than those who come to the country. For Russia, this situation is especially dangerous, since higher (in particular, technical) education in the country is at a decent level, which allows talented specialists to be in demand on the international labor market.

The research project Empirical Study of International Cooperation and Mobility of Specialists Employed in the Field of Science and Technology focuses on assessing the scale and directions of national and international mobility of scientists, analyzing current trends in the international division of labor and cooperation in science, as well as studying the conditions and opportunities for professional mobility for the accumulation of in-demand competencies, taking into account the needs of the labor market in the field of science and technology

Project Aim

Assessing international cooperation and mobility of Russian researchers in the changing conditions of the international division of labor and cooperation in science and technological transformation of the economy

Project Objectives:

1. Study the mobility of Russian scientists as a factor in the development of a professional career

2. Study the structure of scientific cooperation between scientists and scientific elites

3. Study of the subjective attractiveness of a science and technology career in Russia

Key Findings

2020

The project has been implemented since 2023

2021

The project has been implemented since 2023

2022

The project has been implemented since 2023

2023

Estimates of the mobility of Russian science and technology personnel are obtained; barriers to securing promising personnel in Russia are analyzed. In the period from 2019 to 2021, 13.9% of highly productive scientists, 4.3% of teaching staff and 3.3% of graduate students participated in short-term international mobility (for up to 3 months). There is an extremely low level of domestic academic mobility: only 3% of scientists and teachers have such experience. At the same time, a significant part of the NPR are ready to move to another city to a new place of work, subject to an increase in wages. Barriers to mobility are mainly institutional in nature: - strong concentration of science and education in metropolitan regions; - distorted perception of mobility in the regions not as a development resource, but as a risk of personnel loss; - the insufficiency of domestic mobility programs and their weak information support.

Source: Higher School of Economics, Monitoring data on the Economics of Education, 2022

Participation of scientific and pedagogical staff and graduate students in short-term mobility, % of the category

Source: Higher School of Economics, Monitoring data on the Economics of Education, 2022

Willingness to move within the country to get a new job

Educational Programs

Educational Modules at the English-language Master's Program Science, Technology and Innovation Management and Policy (Governance of Science, Technology and Innovation)

The Program of Additional Professional Education «Digitalization of HR and Marketing Activities»

Publications

Katchanov Y. L., Markova Y. V., Shmatko N. A. (2023) Uncited papers in the structure of scientific communication //Journal of Informetrics. – 2023. – Т. 17. – №. 2. – С. 101391. doi

Nefedova A.I., Cefanova E.I., Slepykh V.I., Ivashchenko A.D. (2024) Effects of participation in intra-Russian mobility for young scientists and teachers. Questions of education / Educational Studies Moscow, No. 2, pp. 203-225. doi