Brain Drain Within the EU? • Hacker News Board

Re: Brain Drain Within the EU?

#21

Post by kmlx » Sat, Sep 22, 2018, 3:19 PM UTC

borroka wrote: post #12

snaky wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They will fix it European way. > Support from the European Union could come handy in helping Italian and Spanish entrepreneurs overcome the gap with more developed parts of Europe, both in terms of funding and networking opportunities. Indeed, as for the former, both nations are among the first beneficiaries, in the last two years, of the funds earmarked by the EU for innovation and technological research in the Hori…

The effect of these ERA (European Research Agency) initiatives is zero. EU likes to throw money at problems without following up; for an enlightening example one can look at the Marie Curie fellowship. Money thrown at researcher for 2 or 3 years of research in EU or outside of EU institutions with zero follow up at the end of the fellowship. As far as I know, the vast majority of MC fellows leave academia and researc…

It's the same in other fields. Eastern European countries currently suffer from a plague of politicians and special interests that funnel EU funds straight to either their own personal bank accounts or to close friends and companies. [0] [1]

[0] https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/hungary-... [1] https://ec.europa.eu/anti-fraud/sites/antifraud/files/olaf_r...

Re: Brain Drain Within the EU?

#22

Post by zdragnar » Sat, Sep 22, 2018, 3:30 PM UTC

egeozcan wrote: post #16

village-idiot wrote: post #3

Random thought: the UK has the advantage of speaking English. First, that makes it easier for them to pull in other Europeans, since english is commonly the second language of most other Europeans. Second they can also pull in American and Canadian expats much easier than anyone else in Europe. Germany is more interesting to me. German is not exactly the worlds most common first or second language. So this is more ev…

Contrary to what most people believe, I see that native English speakers can learn German rather easily (with a pretty distinct accent, which I really like :)). Your point stands though, as they usually don't know this before they actually start learning, so they must have other reasons.

Totally irrelevant but perhaps amusing:

In my American high school, I took German as a second language (yay Wisconsin). I then took Mandarin Chinese in college. Even in my fifth year, when a teacher asked me a question, I had a 50/50 chance of thinking of the answer in German first. It was utterly maddening.

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to travel abroad or maintain that knowledge, so all I really remember is "ich spreche nür ein bischen deutch". That, and the day that my teacher asked me what "ich habe keine ahnung" meant, I didn't know. She had me ask another student... Imagine my frustration when the only answer was "I have no idea".

Re: Brain Drain Within the EU?

#23

Post by rossdavidh » Sat, Sep 22, 2018, 3:33 PM UTC

I know it's not the same, culturally, but there is something similar that happens within the U.S. Places like Texas, New York, and California have historically had lots of scientists and engineers move there from places like Oklahoma, Nebraska, and Wyoming. This is also true of computer programmers. Of course, within the U.S. it is not generally as noticed or lamented, but probably it is harder to get a scientific or engineering hub started when most of the locals who are interested in that sort of thing keep moving away.

Again, not saying it doesn't have different causes and consequences in the EU, just that it's not totally different, either.

Re: Brain Drain Within the EU?

#24

Post by mseidl » Sat, Sep 22, 2018, 3:41 PM UTC

egeozcan wrote: post #15

m00dy wrote: post #13

Turkey has now a great exodus ever in its history. Most of the educated Turks are now trying to abandon their beloved country. Recent stats indicate that top 4 countries they are going are UK, Germany, France, Netherlands [1]. If you see any of these precious guys, just say hi to them. They will speak to you. [1]: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-42433668

I've been living in Germany since almost 10 years (I think I should celebrate this?) and I've met many people who also migrated from Turkey, but the overwhelming majority (me included) are not scientists, but many of them have engineering degrees. Just an anecdote, yes, but I've moved around a lot and now I'm living in a city with 25% student population.

Hello my fellow Turkey Gerkey. I'm half German and half Turkish.

Re: Brain Drain Within the EU?

#25

Post by collyw » Sat, Sep 22, 2018, 3:56 PM UTC

ff_ wrote: post #17

jsnell wrote: post #7

I don't understand how these graphs show brain drain, there a bunch of other explanations. For example maybe a bigger proportion of Germans get an appropriate university degree than Italians. Or maybe the people getting an engineering degree in Italy can't get a job in that field, and end up working on something else but not emigrating. Or the difference comes from non-EU scientists/engineers preferentially moving to…

Italian engineer here. The brain drain is real and the graphs represent quite accurately what's happening to me and my peers. (It might be my bubble of course, but hey, now we have this legit-looking snapshot in the article)

From the quick glance I had the salaries seemed really low.

Re: Brain Drain Within the EU?

#26

Post by hectormalot » Sat, Sep 22, 2018, 3:56 PM UTC

borroka wrote: post #11

marmaduke wrote: post #8

French salaries for postdocs and engineers in public research are fairly under average. Still we have plenty of Italians in our lab

The Italian postdoc salaries are comparable to the French ones and there are more opportunities in France than in Italy for some Italians, e.g. those that are not in the line of succession to the throne. When I was doing research in Italy, I never met a French scientist employed in any lab.

Anecdotally I'd say that research salaries in Italy seem quite low. I did an internship together with an Italian student in Switzerland. He had a full-time offer in Italy for what was seen as a good salary. Still, he made substantially more as an intern in Switzerland than he would make as a scientist in Italy.

Re: Brain Drain Within the EU?

#27

Post by arximboldi » Sat, Sep 22, 2018, 4:00 PM UTC

ciguy wrote: post #18

I'm living in Italy at the moment, and I can watch the brain drain happening in real time. Every single university student I know here is looking to go to the UK or Germany when they graduate, almost without exception. I can't blame them at all, taxes are excessive and bureaucracy is excruciating here. Finding even a temporary job usually requires family connections, so the dumbest people with connections end up as m…

I am a Spaniard living in Germany... part of that very same problem. Anyways, "taxes and bureaucracy" is not the problem of the of the european south. In fact, taxes and bureaucracy are both way higher in Germany.

The problems are more complex and historical. The EU economic crisis have been abused by right-wingers to argue that we have a too heavy social system. In fact, the demolition of the social system in the south is precisely preventing it from really leaving the crisis. I want higher taxes if it comes, for example, with free university, like in Germany.

Re: Brain Drain Within the EU?

#28

Post by pageald » Sat, Sep 22, 2018, 4:02 PM UTC

village-idiot wrote: post #3

Random thought: the UK has the advantage of speaking English. First, that makes it easier for them to pull in other Europeans, since english is commonly the second language of most other Europeans. Second they can also pull in American and Canadian expats much easier than anyone else in Europe. Germany is more interesting to me. German is not exactly the worlds most common first or second language. So this is more ev…

Are there a lot of American expat software engineers in the UK? For most people, it would be a steep pay cut to move from the US to anywhere in the EU.

Re: Brain Drain Within the EU?

#29

Post by dmos62 » Sat, Sep 22, 2018, 4:03 PM UTC

I like how this gives evidence to some kind of latin-germanic divide of the south-western Europe, or what we usually just call Western Europe. Apologies in advance for superficial labeling.

Re: Brain Drain Within the EU?

#30

Post by rleigh » Sat, Sep 22, 2018, 4:07 PM UTC

arximboldi wrote: post #27

ciguy wrote: post #18

I'm living in Italy at the moment, and I can watch the brain drain happening in real time. Every single university student I know here is looking to go to the UK or Germany when they graduate, almost without exception. I can't blame them at all, taxes are excessive and bureaucracy is excruciating here. Finding even a temporary job usually requires family connections, so the dumbest people with connections end up as m…

I am a Spaniard living in Germany... part of that very same problem. Anyways, "taxes and bureaucracy" is not the problem of the of the european south. In fact, taxes and bureaucracy are both way higher in Germany. The problems are more complex and historical. The EU economic crisis have been abused by right-wingers to argue that we have a too heavy social system. In fact, the demolition of the social system in the so…

Surely a major factor for problems in both Italy and Spain is the crippling effect of the Euro and EU regulation. If the Euro were scrapped, it could make the economies much more competitive. Just look at how the drop in the pound over the last two years boosted British industry and exports. That's not an option for countries shackled to the Euro.