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Researchers mobility in Bulgaria
Workshop ‘Researchers mobility in the region of Western Balkans’
Kopaonik, 12 March 2007
Elissaveta GourovaSofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”
Main topics
• Sofia university – CIST
• Mobility strategy – focus
• Tools for overcoming mobility problems
• Bulgarian Network of mobility centers
Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”
• The first school of higher education in Bulgaria
• The largest and most prestigious university in Bulgaria, a big academic and scientific centre
• 16 Faculties on humanities and scientific disciplines
• More than 18 000 students and 3000 lecturers and administrative staff
Centre for Information Society Technology
Government
Industry
Research Education
•Research, Innovation and Technology transfer•Knowledge Management•Multimedia•Artificial Intelligence
e-Government
e-Businesse-Commerce
e-Learning
CIST
Software engineering
Education Training
FP6 projects related to researchers
• BulRMCNet - “Bulgarian Network of Research Mobility Centers”
• REKS – “Researchers in European Knowledge Society”
• U*NIGHT – “Universities by Night”
European context of mobility
January 2000: “Towards ERA”• Need for more abundant and mobile researchers in
Europe• Mobility as an important tool for transfer of scientific
and social knowledge
Mobility as a tool for solving demographic problems in Europe and for overcoming the labor shortages
However, large flows into US and a number a barriers
Highly-skilled mobility impactsSENDING COUNTRIES: POSSIBLE POSITIVE EFFECTSScience and technology Knowledge flows and collaboration, return of natives with
foreign education and human capital, increased ties toforeign research institutions
Export opportunities for technology Remittances and venture capital from diaspora networks Successful overseas entrepreneurs bring valuable
management experience and access to global networksHuman capital effects Increased incentive for natives to seek higher skills Possibility of exporting skills reduces risk/raises expected
return from personal education investments May increase domestic economic return to skills
RECEIVING COUNTRIES: POSSIBLE POSITIVE EFFECTSScience and technology Increased R&D and economic activity due to availability of
additional highly skilled workers Entrepreneurship in high growth areas Knowledge flows and collaboration with sending countries Immigrants can foster diversity and creativity Export opportunities for technologyHigher education systems Increased enrolment in graduate programmes/ keeping smaller
programmes alive Offset ageing of university professors and researchersLabour market Wage moderation in high growth sectors with labour shortages Immigrant entrepreneurs foster firm and job creation Immigrants can act as magnets for accessing other immigrant
labour (network hiring effects)SENDING COUNTRIES: POSSIBLE NEGATIVE EFFECTSHuman capital effects “Brain drain” and lost productive capacity due to (at least
temporary) absence of higher skilled workers and students Lower returns from public investment in tertiary education
(waste of national public resources)
RECEIVING COUNTRIES: POSSIBLE NEGATIVE EFFECTSHigher education systems Decreased incentive of natives to seek higher skills in certain fields,
may crowd out native students from best schoolsScience and technology Technology transfers to foreign competitors and possible hostile
countriesPOSSIBLE GLOBAL EFFECTS Better international flows of knowledge, formation of international research/technology clusters (Silicon Valley, CERN). Better job matches, including: greater employment options for workers, researcher’s ability to seek the work most interesting to them
and greater ability of employers to find rare/unique skill sets. International competition for scarce human capital may have net positive effect on incentives for individual human capital investments.
Source: OECD
In Greece remittances – more than 30% of exports and 20% of imports
In Turkey – 3 times higher than FDI
NMS in danger? Immigrants to US
Computer-related H1B visa
EU15 NMS+TK
24%
RO, 5%
TK, 7%
BG, 3%
UK, 37%
PL, 4%
HU, 2%F, 11%D, 10%
IRL, 3%
GR, 2%
Internal mobility flows: barriers
• Legal and administrative (visa, social security, taxes, diplomas recognition, etc.)
• Social and cultural issues
• Researchers career
• Mobility industry-academia
European tools
Mobility Strategy in ERAEuropean Network of research mobility centers - ЕRA MORE
Portal for researchers mobility http://europa.eu.int/eracareers/
Framework programs for RTD
Marie Curie activities in FP6 People in FP7
Mobility academia – industry
Attracting more industrialists into research
Ensuring more opportunities for researchers for detachment into industry
Building more opportunities for meeting and working together – at conferences, targeted workshops, TTO, etc.
Creating more opportunities for young researchers to collaborate with industry – in joint projects, contractual research, sabbaticals, joint PhD supervision, etc.
Objective: Fostering academia-industry collaboration
EU Support Tool: FP7 ‘People’ and ‘Capacity’
BulRMCNet strategy
• Where we are now? • Objectives of the strategy:
to build the Bulgarian Network of RMC and ensure its sustainability
to develop a National research mobility portal to make them well known and used in Bulgaria
• Target audience: researchers, entrepreneurs, research , governmental and business institutions
• How to achieve our objectives?face-to-face communications with all stakeholderspresentations to a larger audiencedissemination of printed and information materialson-line presence – Portal and RMC own sites
Bulgarian Network of Research Mobility Centers
• Mission: to provide researchers and their families with up-to-date information and personalized assistance on issues related to their everyday work and life in a new country
• Scope: 4 regional mobility centers and Bridgehead organization: Sofia University - CIST
http://www.eracareers-bg.net/
