The geography of highly skilled international migration

Abstract

The present paper provides a research review of recent literature on international migration by the highly skilled. Its principal aim is to identify the themes which are being discussed, and suggest where research into the subject might best proceed. The paper begins by examining the existing framework for study. Definitions and data availability are discussed, followed by a consideration of theoretical perspectives and their attendant methodologies and models. This is followed by a review of the two most important perspectives in extant research, economic and socio‐cultural, leading into a review of what is known about the geography of migration by the highly skilled. The systems described are subject to a process of management which is discussed in the penultimate section. Finally, the paper proposes future directions for research which involve a reconceptualisation of migration by the highly skilled as one element in the international movement of expertise. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Knowledge Spillover Agents and Regional Development

“…Several terms such as "international brain exchanges" (Salt 2005) or "brain circulation" (Saxenian 2000) can be found in the literature as denominations for this phenomenon. The trend towards circulation is strongly linked to the changing temporality of skilled labour migration, which is about a shift from longer-term to shorter term mobility ( Koser and Salt 1997;King 2002). As Williams et al (2004, p. 28) put it: "Longer-term migration has increasingly been replaced by more diverse, shorter-term flows, so that it is more apposite to refer to circulation and mobility than to migration".…”

Transnational mobility and the spaces of knowledge production: a comparison of global patterns, motivations and collaborations in different academic fields

“…Despite the praised importance of academic mobility for science and society, surprisingly little is known about global patterns of interaction, motivations for and outcomes of the related transnational movements Windham, 1996;Koser and Salt, 1997;Salt, 1997;Iredale and Appleyard, 2001;King, 2002;Ackers, 2005;Barnett and Phipps, 2005). Mainly a question of data availability, most studies on the wider topic concentrate on student rather than staff mobility (Barnett and Wu, 1995;Jallade, 1996;Li et al, 1996;Teichler 2002;Budke, 2003;King and Ruiz-Gelices, 2003;Baláz and Williams, 2004).…”

Highly skilled migration and the negotiation of immigration policy: Non-EEA postgraduate students and academic staff at English universities

“…Whilst these groups have been the subject of previous scholarly work focusing primarily on rationales for and outcomes of mobility (Koser and Salt, 1997;Iredale, 2001;Saxenian, 2002;Harvey, 2008;Willis et al, 2009;Zhang, 2003;Beaverstock, 2005;Favell and Smith, 2006;Ley, 2010), there is a need for closer examination of the specific ways in which the state affects this type of mobility.…”