UNESCO SCIENCE REPORT

Tracking trends in innovation and mobility
and Spain, the proportion is over 20%, whereas in Latvia,
Lithuania, Poland and Sweden, it is under 10%.
The main destinations for these mobile researchers’ previous
sojourn abroad were the USA, UK, France and Germany (Auriol
et al., 2013). Studies conducted across Europe have shown that
a high level of mobility by qualified personnel between sectors
(such as universities and industries) and across countries
contributes to the overall professionalism of the labour force, as
well as to the innovative performance of the economy (EU, 2014).
Academic factors often lie behind the researcher’s decision
to uproot him- or herself. The move may offer better access
to publishing opportunities, for instance, or enable the
scientist to pursue a research direction that may not be
possible at home. Other motivations include other jobrelated
or economic factors and family or personal reasons
(Auriol et al., 2013).
The presence of foreign doctorate-holders and researchers
has long been acknowledged as adding cultural capital to
the local community and expanding the talent pool of an
economy (Iversen et al., 2014). The careers of doctorateholders
survey reveals that Switzerland hosts the highest
percentage (33.9%) of foreign doctorate-holders, followed
by Norway (15.2%) and Sweden (15.1%) [Figure 2.15].
Chapter 2
Figure 2.14: Percentage of national citizens with a doctorate who lived abroad in the past ten years, 2009
29
24
21
19 19
18
16
14
11 11
7 7
6 5
Malta
Hungary
Spain
Portugal
Netherlands
Belgium
Israel
Slovenia
Croatia
Bulgaria
Sweden
Lithuania
Latvia
Poland
Note: The data cover sojourns of three months or more abroad. Data for Belgium, Hungary, the Netherlands and Spain refer to graduation years from 1990 onwards. For
Spain, there is limited coverage of doctorate-holders for 2007–2009.
Source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics/OECD/Eurostat data collection on careers of doctorate-holders, 2010
Figure 2.15: Percentage of foreign doctorate-holders in selected countries, 2009
33.9
15.2 15.1
5.2 4.8 4.3
3.2 2.7 0.8 0.7 0.7 0.4 0.4 0.3 0.3 0.2
Switzerland
Norway
Sweden
Netherlands
Portugal
Belgium
Malta
Hungary
Latvia
Poland
Israel
Lithuania
Spain
Bulgaria
Slovenia
Croatia
Source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics/OECD/ /Eurostat data collection on careers of doctorate-holders, 2010
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