Brain Circulation and Researcher Mobility

By Simone Poetscher,
Director of Programs and Operations at the Office of Science and Technology Austria in Washington, DC

From Brain Drain to Brain Circulation

The Royal Society coined the term “brain drain” in the late 1950s and early 1960s, referring to the phenomenon of researchers leaving the United Kingdom for the United States and Canada. Since then, researcher mobility and its implications have significantly changed. Demand and competition for human capital are still rising, but many countries no longer fear their bright minds going abroad. Instead, they focus on benefits and opportunities resulting from researchers’ international mobility.

When researchers are on the move, they improve knowledge flow across countries. Mobility also increases collaborations in science, technology, and innovation (STI). Many researchers maintain close ties to their alma maters and research institutes at home. Thus, while broadening their own horizons through experiences abroad, they can also enhance the work of their peers at home positively and valuably through knowledge exchange.

Internationalization of research is not the one-way movement implied by the term “drain.” Instead, researchers engage in a circular flow of expertise that benefits the economies and STI systems of all countries involved. “Brain circulation” is important in a world where we face unprecedented global challenges, including many that cannot be solved by one country alone. Examples include population aging, food and water insecurities, climate change, and public health crises. To find viable solutions, it is necessary that researchers across the globe collaborate rather than compete with each other.

Globalization and advances in technology provide a perfect framework for facilitating such collaborations. Since a global perspective has come into play, researchers can expand their networks across continents better and faster than ever before. At the same time, international scientific organizations are highlighting the value of human capital, creating scientific communities that are more diverse, more inclusive, and aiming to improve gender parity. Formalized networks of researchers that cross borders and disciplines have become invaluable in a world where brain circulation is rising.

Support Mechanisms

Many governments today devote much effort to supporting brain circulation. Austria, for example, is putting policies, funding systems, and support mechanisms in place to facilitate researcher mobility, exchanges, and collaborations. Government-funded efforts may include study-abroad programs or research fellowships that advance a researcher’s education.

Programs such as the Austrian Science Fund’s Erwin-Schrödinger Fellowship and the European-level Horizon 2020 Marie Skłodowska- Curie Actions program bring Austrian researchers to the United States for exposure to new tools, methods, and approaches to be shared with their peers when they return home.

Close transatlantic relationships are also reinforced through the Austrian Marshall Plan Foundation fellowships and opportunities of the Fulbright Austria program. Both programs facilitate reciprocal transatlantic exchange of students and researchers in many disciplines. These mechanisms stimulate cross-continental collaboration, clearly departing from the former models built on researcher retention.

Researcher Network: Inform | Assist | Connect

Austria was at the forefront of understanding the value of a two-way flow of expertise. The effort to support Austrian researchers in North America began about two decades ago at the Office of Science and Technology Austria (OSTA), part of the Austrian Embassy in Washington, DC. OSTA Washington’s mission is to build bridges for research and innovation between Austria and North America.

Since 2001, OSTA Washington does so by supporting Austrian researchers in North America through the Research and Innovation Network Austria (RINA). RINA differs from other scientists’ networks whose primary purpose is often to return researchers to their home countries. Instead, RINA’s goal is to support Austrian researchers, innovators, and students of all academic disciplines and career levels while they advance their careers in North America.

Currently, thousands of Austrians are researching or studying at U.S. research institutions. Through RINA’s support programs, OSTA Washington informs them about developments in science, technology, and innovation in Austria and Europe. It assists researchers in all aspects of their career development, and it connects Austrian scientists abroad to stakeholders of the Austrian STI community. These mechanisms facilitate knowledge exchange, stimulate research collaboration, and enable researchers to remain connected to their home country, regardless of their own geographical location.

Many RINA members value staying connected with the Austrian STI community. Due to their hands-on experience with the North American STI system, RINA members are well equipped to share best-practice models and give valuable input that strengthens the Austrian STI system. Often, this happens organically; at other times, RINA is the facilitator. For example, RINA members share their expertise at Austrian symposia, offer guest lectures at Austrian universities, collaborate on research projects, work on joint publications, host Austrian PhD students and postdocs in their U.S. laboratories, and mentor junior scientists.

The current COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates the value of researcher networks such as RINA. Through such networks, researchers can form relationships, facilitate engagement, establish infrastructures, and build trust before chaos strikes. Researchers who have already worked with one another and understand each other’s capabilities and limitations can produce better work if a pandemic arises. The pieces of the puzzle are already in place, so teams across the globe can immediately focus on working together to solve the problem, rather than first using valuable time to get acquainted.

Austria has found ways to successfully internationalize its research and technology development while, simultaneously, giving back to the Austrian STI community. With the right mix of policies, support mechanisms such as RINA, and sustained international cooperation, a shift from brain drain to brain circulation can be realized.“

“These were my formative years” - Voices from the Network

Three Austrian scientists who are members of RINA offer insights into their time in the United States and share their perspectives on brain circulation and researcher mobility:

Dr. Florian Krammer

Dr. Florian Krammer is Professor of Vaccinology in the Department of Microbiology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, in New York City, and principal investigator at the Sinai-Emory Multi-Institutional Collaborative Influenza Vaccine Innovation Center. He completed his postdoctoral training in the laboratory of fellow Austrian Peter Palese at the Icahn School of Medicine, working on hemagglutinin stalk-based immunity and universal influenza virus vaccines. Dr. Krammer received his advanced training in biotechnology and applied virology at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU) in Vienna. Currently, the team at the Krammer Laboratory is working to provide reagents and standardized protocols for COVID-19 testing.

Please tell us about your research interests. Which topics and/or projects are you working on?

In general I am very interested in how our immune system deals with RNA viruses like influenza viruses or coronaviruses. I study how our antibodies interact with the surface of the virus to fight it. Based on what we learn, my laboratory tries to develop novel vaccines and therapeutics. Universal influenza virus vaccines are one important example of such a development.

Do international collaboration and scientific exchange with researchers from across the globe play a role in your day-to-day work?

They play a huge role. The times when scientists sat in their ivory towers making discoveries on their own are over. We usually work in large teams that include several different research groups, often from different countries. I have ongoing collaborations with laboratories in North, Central, and South America, Africa, Australia, Asia, and of course Europe. My latest paper on influenza B virus neuraminidase antibodies is an example, being a collaboration between a research group in Bergen, Norway, another one in St. Louis, and our group in New York.

Do you still work with your alma mater in Austria, the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna (BOKU)?

We have had many good collaborations and I wrote papers together with Austrian researchers. This includes, but is not limited to, researchers from my old university. In fact, we often have visiting students from Austria in my laboratory. They perform specialized work that they cannot do in their lab back home in Austria. There are also aspects, for example downstream purification, that we are not good at here at my laboratory. This can easily be done at BOKU in Vienna, so we often work together in that respect.

What role does researcher mobility have as countries work on developing solutions for global challenges, such as public health crises?

I think mobility is becoming more and more important, both in terms of short research stays and for long-term career planning. Some topics can only be studied in certain locations or at certain institutes. If I have an interest in such a topic, I need to go where it can be studied. But another driving force is resources. Research funding in the U.S. far exceeds funding in Europe. That attracts brain power and scientists, of course. If you are working in a country that does not provide adequate resources for research, you are basically wasting your energy and creativity. And that drives people to go somewhere else.

What piece of advice do you have for young researchers who are considering spending part of their education abroad?

You should look for laboratories that are global leaders in your field. That is where you should go. Convenience and quality of life should not be a driving force. That is better in Austria than in most other countries, anyway.

Dr. Anna Obenauf

Dr. Anna Obenauf has been a group leader at the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP) in Austria since January 2016. Before starting her own lab, Dr. Obenauf was a postdoctoral researcher for five years at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. While there, Dr. Obenauf received the ASciNA Young Scientist Award for her research on identifying therapies that induce resistance to tumor progression. The ASciNA Award, funded by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research, recognizes excellent scientific accomplishments of Austrian researchers in North America. Dr. Obenauf earned her Ph.D. at the Medical University of Graz. Her research group at IMP studies the molecular mechanisms of metastasis and resistance to therapy.

Tell us about your research interests: What topics/projects are you working on?

My lab studies how responses and resistance to specific cancer therapies are determined at a molecular level. We hope to answer fundamental questions in cancer biology. For example, how is immune evasion achieved? How do oncogenic pathways influence other cells in their microenvironment? What are novel therapeutic entry points for treating cancer? Our vision and mission are to guide rational combination therapies to achieve lasting responses in cancer patients.

You did your postdoctoral research at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in the U.S. Why did you decide to spend part of your career abroad?

While I studied and during my early research career in Graz, I developed a profile in cancer biology and metastasis. Research takes place in a global arena. If you want to grow as a scientist, you are drawn to the leading centers of your field no matter where you worked before. The U.S. became the obvious choice for me. I was offered the opportunity to work with Joan Massagué, now director of Memorial Sloan Kettering. I found scientific excellence there, as well as a well-funded and international research environment. I had fantastic colleagues who quickly became friends. Also, I enjoyed an interesting lifestyle and the diverse culture of New York City. For me, it was the perfect combination.

How did that experience enrich your career as a researcher?

Memorial Sloan Kettering is a fast-paced environment and expectations were high, but it seemed that everyone was there to achieve something. People worked very hard, were truly excited about their research, and many wanted to make a difference for patients. It pushed me to the limits, but I truly loved it there. It was a magical time that I would not want to miss. These were my formative years. Much of what I experienced still influences my work and how I lead my lab. Most important was the approach: to deeply understand a clinically relevant or biologically fascinating problem by shedding light on it from different angles. It is something we aim for in many of our projects today.

Your work received an Austrian Award, the ASciNA Award, which acknowledges researcher excellence in North America. Can you tell us more about this?

My research on targeted cancer therapies was published in the journal Nature and was recognized by the ASciNA Award in the “Young Scientist” category in 2015. It was an honor to be selected, and it was fantastic to connect with other Austrian scientists in North America at the awards ceremony. The event was held in San Francisco just before I returned to Austria, concluding my time in the U.S.

Have professional opportunities opened up for you due to working in the U.S.?

Yes, I still draw on the connections I made in the U.S. and I am convinced it will make a difference in the long run. My colleagues and friends are spread across the world, from the U.S., to China, to Europe. This network has already facilitated international collaborations, talk invitations, and joint grants. It was extremely gratifying to be able to return to Austria as a group leader and implement the know-how, international experience, and network in my country of origin. I am a group leader at the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology and a member of the Young Chapter of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. In these roles, I want to contribute to the Austrian scientific community. In particular, to support young talent and to enable better integration of a scientific career with having a family. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to establish my lab at the IMP, but I am convinced that to recruit and keep talent in Austria, it will be important to provide more long-term career perspectives and enough funding to sustain research at an internationally competitive level.

What advice do you have for young researchers considering international opportunities?

In general, I advise students and postdocs to think clearly about what they expect from this next career step. Then they should put themselves in the environment that supports them most. It sounds trivial, but if you are clear about your goals and the necessary framework, you can avoid disappointment. I strongly recommend building a diverse network of mentors early on: These can be group leaders and colleagues. Finally, immerse yourself in the new culture and have fun!

Dr. Thomas Pölzler

Dr. Thomas Pölzler is a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer in the Philosophy Department at the University of Graz, Austria, where he also received his Ph.D. Prior to this role, he visited the Psychology Department of the College of Charleston, South Carolina, on an Erwin Schrödinger Fellowship from the Austrian Science Fund. For the resulting research, Dr. Pölzler was awarded the ASciNA Young Scientist Award. This ASciNA Award, funded by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research, recognizes excellent scientific accomplishments of Austrian researchers in North America. Dr. Pölzler’s research focuses mainly on metaethics and moral psychology. He is particularly interested in the validity and metaethical relevance of empirical studies of morality.

Could you describe your research interests and the topics you are working on?

My research focuses on how we should act and live, especially from a moral point of view. I am interested in whether there are objective moral values. What is required by justice? How should countries respond to climate change? And, do our lives have meaning? Philosophers have typically approached these questions by appealing to their own intuition. Most of my recent research, however, is informed by science. I try to show how we should morally live, by studying or drawing on studies about people’s moral cognition and behavior. I bring ethics together with other disciplines such as psychology, neuroscience, and evolutionary biology.

You studied at universities around the world as a visiting student and visiting researcher. Why is it important that researchers gain experience abroad?

Going abroad allows researchers to connect and work with leading experts in their fields. We learn new approaches and methods and can perfect our foreign language skills. There are also personal benefits: We can become more independent and self-confident, and increase our awareness of and tolerance for cultural differences. Especially in the humanities, these personal changes can ultimately improve our research. For me, seeing that people of different cultures hold very different basic moral values enhanced my perception that not all our values have an objective basis. Parts of morality may be culturally relative.

An Erwin Schrödinger fellowship allowed you to conduct research in the Psychology Department at the College of Charleston. Which aspects of that experience were most valuable to you?

Erwin Schrödinger fellowships allow researchers to develop their studies independently and in a highly focused way. Professor Jen Wright was my host at the College of Charleston. Thanks to her, I could take full advantage of this great opportunity. She took time to collaborate extensively across a number of topics. Linking her psychology expertise with my philosophy competencies was especially fruitful. I also very much enjoyed Charleston’s non-academic amenities. It is an exceptionally lovely place. I often think back to strolling through its downtown streets lined with palm trees and colorful houses, with the smell of the sea and warm weather in the air.

How has your research abroad influenced your current work at the University of Graz?

I gained first-hand insights into methods, potential, and limits of psychological studies, which benefited my research tremendously. I also still collaborate with Professor Wright. Among other projects, we are currently writing a book that synthesizes and expands on the research we did in Charleston. I have also started to apply some of my new methodological skills to alternative subject matter. I am particularly interested in studying how ordinary people across various cultures think about the concept of basic needs. Such studies could be important for determining states’ duties of justice, especially in contexts such as climate change or the COVID-19 pandemic. It seems plausible that each person should, first and foremost, have a chance to meet their basic needs. I am looking into that.

What value do you believe students and researchers who spent time abroad bring back to the STI communities of their home country?

Home institutions tend to benefit from such exchanges in a number of ways. They gain new methods, fresh knowledge, different networks, and so on. After my return from the U.S., I teamed up with a colleague from Graz. We wrote a research proposal and a paper together. Both benefitted significantly from the new psychological expertise I obtained working in Charleston. I also arranged for a graduate student from Graz to run studies and co-author a paper with Professor Wright and myself.

What role do you expect international collaborations and exchange to play in your ongoing career?

Both will continue to play central roles for me. I am engaged in ongoing research with Professor Wright. I have also started cooperating with researchers from Brazil, Japan, Spain, and other countries. Those researchers will join my basic needs project and provide data on how people in their various countries think about these needs. Once the coronavirus pandemic is under control, I can move beyond video-conferencing and visit collaboration partners in person for at least several weeks a year. I very much look forward to doing so, in ways that minimize the environmental impact of my travels.

Hannes RichterJanuary 6, 2021