Attracting research talent ‘no longer one-size-fits-all’

The prestige of an institution’s research is no longer enough to attract talent from around the world, and factors such as the local job opportunities for scientists’ partners have come much more to the fore, Times Higher Education’s Impact & Innovation Summit has heard.

Thomas Hofmann, president of the Technical University of Munich, said cities or regions that did not work with universities to make sure there were “attractive offers” for the families of researchers might struggle to pull in the best scientific talent.

“We see this with recruiting professors from all over the place. You always need to have attractive offers in the city, in the community, for [partners of researchers], otherwise you will never get the best people,” he told the event, which was held online.

“Usually, the top scientists are already settled well in other places…and usually also the family. So it is not enough to offer her or him a good opportunity. This is not even a soft factor; it has become a really hard factor.”

Another panellist in the session emphasised that there was no longer a “one-size-fits-all” approach to attracting research talent.

Samir Kouro, director of innovation and technology transfer at Federico Santa María Technical University in Chile, said an element of this was because academic mobility was taking place “at a stage when family is already starting to happen”.

But he also emphasised that the research goals of younger scientists had shifted away from “prestige” and towards impact being a “personal mission” given that they could see global challenges such as climate change affecting their generation.

The panellists also considered which other factors would have a major influence on academic mobility in the future as well as how online collaboration might change the nature of international movement.

Neela Nataraj, professor-in-charge at the IITB-Monash Research Academy in India, said geopolitical considerations were becoming important when scientists decided on where to locate, as well as “concerns of equal and fair treatment [and] liberty of free thinking”.

The session also heard from Sarah Al Amiri, the United Arab Emirates’ advanced technologies minister, who told the panel that the Covid pandemic had made it easier to develop research collaborations with Israel in the light of the two countries’ improving diplomatic relations.

“The pandemic has enabled us to bring researchers from the Emirates and researchers from Israel that are working on the same areas of research [together] on a virtual platform, when we couldn’t have done that in any way if the pandemic didn’t happen,” she said.

The pandemic had also led the UAE government to rethink its approach to research priorities, especially in terms of reviewing them more regularly.

“What the last year has allowed us to do is to, one, revisit the current priorities that are on the table, and, two, ensure there is resilience [in] the system of setting policies and priorities,” she said, adding that the UAE would now review its research priorities every 18 months to two years.

The event was held in partnership with the University of Auckland and Pennsylvania State University.

simon.baker@timeshighereducation.com