Arbeitsbereich

Migration und Mobilität

Auf einen Blick Projekte Publikationen Team

Projekt

Migration and Mobility of Scholars

Aliakbar Akbaritabar, Asli Ebru Sanlitürk, Tom Theile, Thiago Zordan Malaguth, Maciej Danko, Emilio Zagheni; in Zusammenarbeit mit Xinyi Zhao (Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Deutschland), Samin Aref (University of Toronto, Kanada), László Németh (Weierstrass Institute for Applied Analysis and Stochastics, Berlin, Deutschland), Jevin West (University of Washington, Seattle, Vereinigte Staaten), Andrea Miranda-González (University of California, Berkeley, Vereinigte Staaten), Alexander Subbotin (Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russland), Francesco C. Billari (Bocconi University, Milan, Italien), Guy Stecklov (The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Kanada)

Ausführliche Beschreibung

The migration of highly skilled individuals, and specifically of scholars, has important consequences for innovation and economic growth in the sending and receiving countries, as well as for regional development. Understanding the processes that drive migration flows and the impacts of incentives or economic changes on migration is essential for designing effective policies that address scholarly migration and its consequences.

A key challenge that arises in conducting research on highly skilled migrants is the lack of comprehensive data. The recent availability of large-scale digital trace data from professional networking sites and from large collections of scholarly publications has enabled researchers to study the population dynamics of actively publishing researchers and scholars (Akbaritabar et al. 2024). In particular, bibliometric databases, such as Scopus, OpenAlex, and curriculum vitae (CV) information from Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID) and LinkedIn, offer unique opportunities to trace the career trajectories of scholars and their networks of co-authors over time and space. In this project, these data are used to contribute to the development of migration theories, including on the relationships between internal and international migration. These data also enable us to advance a gender perspective on the global migration of scholars (e.g., Zhao et al. 2023, Akbaritabar et al. 2025).

In one study using data from Scopus covering the 1998–2017 period, we examined the interrelation between the internal and international migration of scholars (Akbaritabar et al. 2025). The literature on the globalization of migration has found empirical evidence that while the pool of sending countries has increased worldwide, the group of receiving countries has shrunk over time, with globalization being an asymmetric process. We found that, at the country level, some countries acted as global hubs that attracted scholars from throughout the world. However, at the subnational level, some of the regions within these countries had negative net migration rates, with implications for scientific output and regional development, as well as for the perpetuation of migration corridors. Our results showed that, on average, subnational inequalities in attracting and sending scholars increased for international migration, but decreased for internal migration, over the study period.

In another study drawing on Scopus data, we conducted further analyses on return migration and used a machine learning approach to assign nationality to scholars based on their names. We found that a large proportion of the observed emigration reflects the return migration of graduates to their countries of origin (Ghorbanpour et al. 2025).

While many countries have migration policies designed to attract internationally mobile researchers, major political shifts could influence their migration decisions. In another study, we examined the effects of Brexit on the migration decisions of a selected sample of active and internationally mobile researchers using Scopus data between 2013 and 2019. While we found no evidence of a brain drain immediately after the Brexit referendum, we observed a trend of compositional change in terms of the researchers’ academic origins. The findings suggested that after Brexit, active and internationally mobile researchers who started their career in an EU country had an increased probability of leaving Britain, whereas researchers who started their career in the UK had a higher probability of returning to Britain than researchers with other academic origins, as well as a decreased probability of leaving Britain (Sanliturk et al., 2024).

Geschlechterverhältnis zwischen allen Forscher*innen und migrierten Forscher*innen

Geschlechterverhältnis unter allen Forschern, die veröffentlicht haben (X-Achse) und Forschern mit Migrationshintergrund (Y-Achse). Die Größe des Kreises eines jeden Landes ist proportional zur Anzahl der Forscherinnen, die aus diesem Land zu- und eingewandert sind. Die grüne 45-Grad-Linie zeigt die Gleichheit zwischen den beiden Dimensionen, und die blaue Linie zeigt eine angepasste Regression. © MPIDR

Source: Based on the paper by Zhao, Xinyi; Akbaritabar, Aliakbar; Kashyap, Ridhi and Zagheni, Emilio, A gender perspective on the global migration of scholars, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2214664120, 2023

The relationship between emigration rates of scholars and economic development

Scholarly emigration rates (1998 to 2017) as a function of GDP per capita (2017 constant international dollars at purchasing power parity (12)). The combined data for each year and country are plotted as a box plot, while the country- and year-specific data are plotted using colored dots. Each color represents a separate country. With an increase in GDP per capita, the migration propensity of scholars first decreases. At higher income levels, it increases. © MPIDR

Source: Based on the paper by Sanliturk, E., Zagheni, E., Dańko, M. J., Theile, T., & Akbaritabar, A., Global patterns of migration of scholars with economic development. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 120(4), e2217937120. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2217937120, 2023

Publikationen

Akbaritabar, A.; Castro Torres, A. F.; Zagheni, E.:

Internationally mobile researchers contribute to scientific production far beyond their share in the population

MPIDR Working Paper WP-2026-009. (2026)    

Akbaritabar, A.; Theile, T.; Zagheni, E.:

Bilateral flows and rates of subnational and international migration of scholars worldwide by gender and field

MPIDR Working Paper WP-2026-029. (2026)    

Kim, J. S.; Carrasco Armijo, J. I.; Vishnoi, S.; Liang, Y.; Lauber, M.; Cortes, J. D.; Akbaritabar, A.; Basellini, U.; Zagheni, E.:

Global improvements in the representation of women in science are stalling

MPIDR Working Paper WP-2026-019. (2026)    

Rottenkolber, A.; Ali, O.; Mónus, G.; Li, J.; Kim, J.; Perrotta, D.; Akbaritabar, A.:

The role of professional networks and institutional prestige in shaping the first career moves of scholars

PNAS Nexus 5:6, 1–12. (2026)    

Slocombe, H.; Rowe, F.; Akbaritabar, A.:

Global sequencing of researcher migration reveals factors associated with disparities in subnational patterns of brain gain and drain

MPIDR Working Paper WP-2026-018. (2026)    

Akbaritabar, A.; Dańko, M. J.; Zhao, X.; Zagheni, E.:

Global subnational estimates of migration of scientists reveal large disparities in internal and international flows

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 122:15, e2424521122–e2424521122. (2025)    

Akbaritabar, A.; Haunschild, R.; Bornmann, L.:

A study of gender and regional differences in scientific mobility and immobility among researchers identified as potentially talented

Journal of Informetrics 19:4, 101744–101744. (2025)    

Ghorbanpour, F.; Zordan Malaguth, T.; Akbaritabar, A.:

Differentiating emigration from return migration of scholars using name-based nationality detection models

In: Proceedings of the 19th International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (ICWSM-25): Copenhagen, Denmark, June 23–26, 2025, 636–652. Washington, DC: AAAI Press. (2025)    

Rottenkolber, A.; Ali, O.; Mónus, G.; Li, J.; Kim, J.; Perrotta, D.; Akbaritabar, A.:

It's who you know — unless you’re famous: professional networks and prestige in scholarly mobility

MPIDR Working Paper WP-2025-028. (2025)    

Akbaritabar, A.; Haunschild, R.; Bornmann, L.:

Higher mobility among researchers identified as potentially talented academics compared to a control group

In: Proceedings of the 28th International Conference on Science, Technology and Innovation Indicators (STI2024), Berlin, Germany, 18-20 September 2024, 1–10. Zenodo. (2024)    

Akbaritabar, A.; Theile, T.; Zagheni, E.:

Bilateral flows and rates of international migration of scholars for 210 countries for the period 1998-2020

Scientific Data 11:816, 1–14. (2024)    

Şanlitürk, A. E.; Aref, S.; Zagheni, E.; Billari, F. C.:

Homecoming after Brexit: evidence on academic migration from bibliometric data

Demography 61:6, 1897–1921. (2024)    

Walk, E.; Akbaritabar, A.:

Resolving the paradox between migration and collaboration of scholars worldwide

SocArXiv papers. unpublished. (2024)    

Akbaritabar, A.; Dańko, M. J.; Zhao, X.; Zagheni, E.:

Sub-national disparities in the global mobility of academic talent

MPIDR Working Paper WP-2023-038. (2023)    

Akbaritabar, A.; Theile, T.; Zagheni, E.:

Global flows and rates of international migration of scholars

MPIDR Working Paper WP-2023-018. (2023)    

Şanlitürk, A. E.; Zagheni, E.; Dańko, M. J.; Theile, T.; Akbaritabar, A.:

Global patterns of migration of scholars with economic development

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 120:4, e2217937120–e2217937120. (2023)    

Zhao, X.; Akbaritabar, A.; Kashyap, R.; Zagheni, E.:

A gender perspective on the global migration of scholars

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 120:10, e2214664120–e2214664120. (2023)    

Şanlitürk, A. E.; Aref, S.; Zagheni, E.; Billari, F. C.:

Homecoming after Brexit: evidence on academic migration from bibliometric data

MPIDR Working Paper WP-2022-019. (2022)    

Zhao, X.; Aref, S.; Zagheni, E.; Stecklov, G.:

Return migration of German-affiliated researchers: analyzing departure and return by gender, cohort, and discipline using Scopus bibliometric data 1996–2020

Scientometrics 127:12, 7707–7729. (2022)    

Zhao, X.; Aref, S.; Zagheni, E.; Stecklov, G.:

International migration in academia and citation performance: an analysis of German-affiliated researchers by gender and discipline using Scopus publications 1996-2020

In: 18th International Conference on Scientometrics and Informetrics ISSI 2021: 12-15 July 2021, KU Leuven, Belgium; proceedings, 1369–1380. Leuven: ISSI. (2021)    

Zhao, X.; Aref, S.; Zagheni, E.; Stecklov, G.:

Mapping academic migration of German-affiliated researchers across countries using 8 million Scopus publications from 1996 to 2020

Abstracts of the International Cartographic Association 3:327, 1–2. (2021)    

Miranda-González, A.; Aref, S.; Theile, T.; Zagheni, E.:

Scholarly migration within Mexico: analyzing internal migration among researchers using Scopus longitudinal bibliometric data

EPJ Data Science 9. (2020)    

Subbotin, A.; Aref, S.:

Brain drain and brain gain in Russia: analyzing international mobility of researchers by discipline using Scopus bibliometric data 1996-2020

MPIDR Working Paper WP-2020-025. (2020)    

Alburez-Gutierrez, D.; Aref, S.; Gil-Clavel, B. S.; Grow, A.; Negraia, D. V.; Zagheni, E.:

Demography in the digital era: new data sources for population research

In: Smart statistics for smart applications : book of short papers SIS2019, 23–30. Pearson. (2019)