Recognizing New Trends in Brain Drain Studies in the Framework of Global Sustainability

Alejandro Vega-Muñoz, Paloma Gónzalez-Gómez-del-Miño and Juan Felipe Espinosa-Cristia
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Alejandro Vega-Muñoz: Public Policy Observatory, Universidad Autónoma de Chile, 7500912 Santiago, Chile
Paloma Gónzalez-Gómez-del-Miño: Facultad de Ciencias Políticas y Sociología, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 28223 Madrid, Spain
Juan Felipe Espinosa-Cristia: Facultad de Economía y Negocios, Universidad Andres Bello, 2531015 Viña del Mar, Chile

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 6, 1-27

Abstract: Scholars had been documenting the Brain Drain phenomenon producing scientific literature for more than 50 years. After three decades of slow but steady progress, literature about this concept has accelerated its progress and growth path, in line with the 9th sustainable development goal “ Build resilient infrastructure, promote sustainable industrialization and foster innovation ” Thus, the present article aims to define the current theoretical trends about the analysis of advanced intellectual human capital’s international migratory phenomenon. This study uses a scientometric methodology on a corpus of 1212 articles indexed to the JCR-WoS from Social Sciences. The period covered in the study is from 1965 to 2020. The paper looks to understand how researchers studied the brain drain concept over the last 55 years in various disciplines. The report covers 99 categories from the Journal Citation Report (JCR) index. Results show that there is a scientific research critical mass that is studying the brain drain phenomenon. The analysis shows thematic trends at the sources, discourses, and consolidates classic works and some novel authors. Those new scholars and theoretical trends lead to refocused analysis beyond countries with a high development level. Such movement constitutes a new challenge in this line of research toward studying the effects of the brain drain in the peripheral areas of knowledge production.

Keywords: brain drain; intellectual capital; international migration; cross-border cooperation; Scientific Elite; cooperation networks; literature; social sciences; scientometrics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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