MobiGrants: New Agents of Brain Drain in Portuguese Higher Education

Emigration is a chronic structural process of Portuguese society. The discussion and key arguments raised in this chapter are mainly focused on data from a research project (Bradramo) on Portuguese skilled emigration; based on the outcomes of the Bradramo project it can be suggested that recent phenomena in general, and the crisis that began around 2008 in particular, profoundly transformed the patterns of Portuguese emigration. Nowadays, the country faces a brain drain dynamic that is dramatically altering the profiles of national emigrants, emigration destinations, self-identity, and the strategies of those who leave the country. The neologism “MobiGrants” is used here to characterise recent Portuguese emigration. Academic mobility, which was mainly promoted by the European Union (through grants from the Erasmus Programme), created and fostered mobility flows that reinforced a latent mobility phenomenon. Once engaged in academic mobility programmes, Portuguese higher education students tend to stay in the country of destination or, upon returning temporarily to Portugal, to evince a very strong predisposition to move to a country of the European Union. Further, this grant-fuelled latent mobility exhibits a clear tendency towards moving between various countries and a very weak predisposition vis-à-vis a possible return to Portugal. Alongside this weak propensity to return, there is a marked refusal to assume a self-identity as emigrants. The profile of Portuguese “MobriGrants” reveals a trend towards a permanent and a long-term (as opposed to a temporary or transitory) mobility, an insertion in the primary segment of the labour market of the destination countries, a predominance of professionals connected to the academic/scientific system and to professions requiring high skills, and a latent mobility (after a period of study in the country of destination) rather than direct mobility flows (after having entered in the employment system of the sending country)

From Portugal to Europe. A micro-level Sociology of scientific migration in times of Eurozone crisis.

Academic international mobility and intra-European highly skilled migration are consolidated trends. Strongly stimulated by EU policies, the opportunities are highly dynamic, and circulation through different jobs and countries is a striking feature of the academic community. However, for a fragile economy and scientific system as the Portuguese ones, those trends are synonyms of brain drain, particularly in times of Eurozone crisis. In order to question the place of the economic crisis on scientists’ migration decision-making process, and considering that academic mobility is often associated with individual career perspectives and encouraged by European policies, five individual portraits are analysed

L'émigration portugaise qualifiée dans le contexte européen

Devant le renouvellement de l’émigration portugaise en Europe, une enquête réalisée en 2014 fait le point sur les représentations que les migrants portent sur leur propre parcours. La distinction de différents facteurs de répulsion pour leur pays d’origine et d’attraction pour le pays de destination permet d’esquisser les nouveaux visages des migrants portugais, plus qualifiés que leurs prédécesseurs, très informés sur les perspectives professionnelles de mobilité. Envisageant leur départ davantage comme une expérience de vie qu’une situation d’émigration, ils contribuent à redéfinir les contours transnationaux de l’Europe contemporaine

Socialização e percursos (e)migratórios em Portugal: uma análise a partir de retratos sociológicos

This article intends to study the link between socialization and highly qualify emigration, from a purposive sample of Portuguese citizens who were or had been emigrants in a European country, in the past six years. This sample is composed by highly qualified individuals or individuals who had an occupation corresponding to this qualification level. In this sense, the resulting twenty individual portraits allow the study of the socialization processes that facilitate the "brain drain". At an individual level, this research design enables the analysis of migratory social dispositions’ creation and mobilization, which are related to social and/or cultural mobility processes. One concludes that there are some cases of disposicional heterogeneity and disposicional rupture, but most portraits represent cases of dispositional coherence in favour of emigration. Qualified emigration seems to be a result of dispositions mutual reinforcing towards emigration, in addition to the will to pursue personal and professional projects that do not find fertile ground in Portuga

Exodus of skills and academic mobility from Portugal to Europe (Portuguese)

The need for deeper knowledge about the complexities of the “brain drain” phenomenon and its increasing increase in the country led to the development of this research. In order to capture this complex reality, a mixed, multilateral methodology was used, using quantitative and qualitative information collection techniques with a view to characterizing the factors of attraction and repulsion in the decision to migrate, allowing the identification of trajectories of upward and downward social mobility, analyzing life projects, differentiated socializations and contrasting strategies for making the most of school capital

Indução da atividade fagocitária e produção de óxido nítrico numa população natural de Trypanosoma cruzi I e II do Estado do Paraná, Brasil

Twelve strains of Trypanosoma cruzi isolated from wild reservoirs, triatomines, and chronic chagasic patients in the state of Paraná, southern Brazil, and classified as T. cruzi I and II, were used to test the correlation between genetic and biological diversity. The Phagocytic Index (PI) and nitric-oxide (NO) production in vitro were used as biological parameters. The PI of the T. cruzi I and II strains did not differ significantly, nor did the PI of the T. cruzi strains isolated from humans, triatomines, or wild reservoirs. There was a statistical difference in the inhibition of NO production between T. cruzi I and II and between parasites isolated from humans and the strains isolated from triatomines and wild reservoirs, but there was no correlation between genetics and biology when the strains were analyzed independently of the lineages or hosts from which the strains were isolated. There were significant correlations for Randomly Amplified Polymorphic Deoxyribonucleic acid (RAPD) and biological parameters for T. cruzi I and II, and for humans or wild reservoirs when the lineages or hosts were considered individually.Doze cepas de Trypanosoma cruzi isoladas de reservatórios silvestres, triatomíneos e de pacientes chagásicos crônicos do Estado do Paraná, Brasil, classificadas como Tc I e II foram usadas para avaliar a correlação entre genética e diversidade biológica. Índice fagocítico (IF) e produção de óxido nítrico (ON) in vitro foram os parâmetros biológicos utilizados. O IF de cepas T. cruzi I e II não diferiram significativamente assim como o IF de cepas isoladas de humanos, triatomíneos ou de reservatórios silvestres. Há diferença estatística na inibição da produção de ON entre T. cruzi I e II e entre parasitos isolados de humanos e de cepas isoladas de triatomíneos e reservatórios silvestres, mas não foi observada correlação entre genética e biologia quando as cepas foram analisadas independentemente da linhagem ou hospedeiros das quais elas foram isoladas. Observou-se correlação significativa para amplificação aleatória do DNA polimórfico e parâmetros biológicos de Tc I ou II e para os seres humanos ou reservatório silvestre quando linhagens ou hospedeiros são consideradas separadamente