France’s brain drain of young scientists may be far worse than imagined as Gallic researchers are choosing not to return home after their postdoctoral studies abroad, says a recent study. Previous studies undertaken in the 1990s estimated that about 7 percent of French Ph D graduates who went abroad were still there three years after graduating, but research by University of Burgundy scholars now suggests that the non-returnee rate to France is closer to 60 percent.

According to a survey of 400 young Ph D students who had worked internationally after graduating between 2003 and 2008, some 57 percent remained abroad after three years — with one in three in either the US or the UK. Some 41 percent of those surveyed had not returned to France altogether, according to the paper by Claire Bonnard, Julien Calmand and Jean-François Giret, titled International Mobility of French Ph Ds, published in the European Journal of Higher Education.

The study of France’s academic brain drain follows repeated warnings by Emmanuel Macron, the favourite to become France’s next president, that the country is not doing enough to win back its most talented young graduates. The 39-year-old former investment banker also called on US scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs to come to France if they were disillusioned by the stance on climate change taken by the new US president, Donald Trump.

However, structural problems in France’s academic labour market may explain why many top postdoctoral researchers are not returning to their homeland, according to the study. While 65 percent of Ph Ds say that the need to get international experience is an important reason for leaving France, acquiring such international experience does not always assist their search for an academic job in France later in their careers, the researchers suggest. 

However, Prof. Berestycki, a mathematician who worked at the University of Chicago in the 1970s, says he doesn’t believe there is a particular problem for postdocs seeking to return to France. “It may be true for some subjects, but it is not the case for science, where appointment panels see international mobility as a very good thing. We still have many advantages in France — the quality of life is very good and the students are high quality, which is an attraction for many academics.”

While some leading scientists might inevitably stay abroad in countries with “substantial research and development capacities and a tradition of immigration”, it is still important to consider new recruitment strategies, such as more mid-career tenure opportunities, which provide “incentives for young Ph Ds who have gone abroad to return” the paper concludes.