Geographical analysis of the academic brain drain in Italy

To study the behavior of Italian researchers living in Italy with a view to creating appropriate policies to tackle the brain drain and discourage academics from emigrating, we constructed a survey based on a sample of 4700 Italian researchers (assistant professors) in several universities in Italy. The outlook is far from rosy: Italian researchers are generally dissatisfied with the economic and social situation of the country. Strong family ties represent the element keeping them at home in Italy. In this regard, no particular differences were noted between the North and South of the country. In analyzing the Italian academic system we identified factors that have greater weight in driving Italian intellectual talent to emigrate: the country’s higher education system leaves all dissatisfied. Furthermore, we discovered other factors that, albeit weak, keep Italian researchers in Italy. However, one wonders how much longer family and national ties will be able to keep Italian skilled agents in Italy, and whether such dissatisfaction may jeopardize the country’s future economic development.Skilled migration; pull and push factors; academic system; geographical distribution

How do university systems' features affect academic inbreeding? Career rules and language requirements in France, Germany, Italy and Spain

Author's accepted manuscript.Available from 19/01/2023.This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Seeber, M. & Mampaey, J. (2021). How do university systems' features affect academic inbreeding? Career rules and language requirements in France, Germany, Italy and Spain. Higher Education Quarterly, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/hequ.12302. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions.Studies on academic inbreeding have mostly focused on institutional inbreeding and its negative effects, whereas little research has explored its causes. We identify current explanations of the macro‐, meso‐ and micro‐level factors that sustain academic inbreeding as well as research gaps. We address a main research gap regarding what macro‐level factors contribute to academic inbreeding, by analysing systems’ norms and rules regulating access to senior academic positions and teaching language requirements in France, Germany, Italy and Spain, the largest public university systems of the European Union. The analysis reveals that career rules designed to guarantee quality may have unintended effects in terms of academic inbreeding. Most importantly, the habilitation procedures pose greater challenges to international candidates and often increase barriers between disciplines as well. In some disciplines and regions, language requirements contribute substantially to academic inbreeding.acceptedVersio

Managing the re‐entry process of returnee government scholars in an emerging transition economy–an embeddedness perspective

This paper reports the findings of a study that investigates the factors affecting the re‐entry and readjustment process of returnee government scholars in Vietnam. These returnee scholars were originally sent overseas to study as part of changes introduced by the Vietnamese government to develop its domestic talent pool. Using the perspective of home country embeddedness, we find that career and community embeddedness factors, together with readjustment factors, have an effect on returnee scholars’ career and life satisfaction in their home country. These factors subsequently affected their intention to stay or re‐expatriate. The study contributes to public sector change management theory by examining factors affecting the re‐entry process of returnees within an emerging transition economy. It also adds to the limited studies on understanding and managing the re‐entry processes and state‐led diaspora strategies among returnee government scholars from emerging transition economies and their effectiveness

Oltre i confini del Nord-est: primi risultati di uno studio quinquennale sulla propensione all’espatrio e sulle destinazioni internazionali dei laureandi dell’Università di Udine

L’emigrazione di un gran numero di persone altamente qualificate viene considerata un problema quando non viene controbilanciata nel tempo da un flusso in entrata di uguale entità e qualità. A lungo andare, tale fenomeno – noto come brain drain o “fuga di cervelli” – può generare effetti negativi anche sulla capacità di sviluppo del paese d’origine del migrante. La prospettiva adottata in questo studio è diversa da quella usualmente presente in letteratura, che analizza ex-post il fenomeno sulla base dei dati ufficiali sui flussi demografici dei residenti. Si intende invece indagare il fenomeno all’origine, ben prima che esso si traduca in “nuova emigrazione”, attraverso un caso di studio: nel 2017 è stata progettata un’indagine censuaria dei laureandi dell’Università di Udine che rileva le intenzioni all’espatrio di tutti gli studenti alla fine del proprio percorso di studi accademico registrando anche le possibili destinazioni. Questo permette di individuare l’esistenza di un’eventuale concentrazione geografica nelle loro preferenze. In questo articolo si presentano, per la prima volta, i risultati relativi al primo quinquennio di rilevazione 2018-22, compresi quelli sull’impatto sulla propensione all’espatrio dei laureandi della pandemia e dello scoppio del conflitto russo-ucraino

Building the Intimate Boundaries of the Nation:The Regulation of Mixed Intimacies in Colonial Libya and the Construction of Italian Whiteness (1911-1942)

The study of the regulation of "mixed" intimacies between Italian settlers and people that fell under Italian colonial rule can clarify processes of racialization of subaltern social groups while pointing at the construction of Italian whiteness in the colonial environment. However, research on mixed intimacies during Italian colonialism has focused solely on the Eastern African colonial contexts, namely, how such relationships unfolded and were regulated in Eritrea, Somalia and Ethiopia during Italian colonial rule. With this research, I aim to add to this research landscape the context of the Italian colonization of Libya (1911-1942), to assess whether Italian colonial administrators regulated intimacies between Italians and Libyans and to ascertain whether these regulations played a role in the racialization of Libya and the identification of Italians as white. In order to do so, I deployed a socio-legal and cultural analysis approach to the examination of official archival sources collected in the Italian state, Vatican, and Missionary congregations' archives. Through such an analysis, the regulations of mixed intimacies collected in the archives are juxtaposed with the social changes that influenced and were influenced by the policing of intimacy in the Libyan colonial context. The main finding of this research is that Italian colonial administrators regulated mixed intimacies throughout their colonial presence in Libya to establish the category of whiteness on the settler population while racializing Libyans as Others. In particular, this research found that the racialization of the colonial Other through the regulation of mixed intimacies was a significant factor that allowed a modern, white, European subjectivity to emerge and represent itself as a signifier of Italian identity in the empire. Regulating mixed intimacies coincided with keeping control of categorization processes that affected both colonizing and colonized societies, therefore representing an untapped resource in understanding the historical production of racial categories in the Italian colonial context