Laudel, G "Study the brain drain: Can bibliometric methods help?" SCIENTOMETRICS 57 (2). 2003. p.215-237

[Eugene Garfield]

G. Laudel : grit.laudel at anu.edu.au

TITLE:          Study the brain drain: Can bibliometric methods help?
                (Article, English)
AUTHOR:         Laudel, G
SOURCE:         SCIENTOMETRICS 57 (2). 2003. p.215-237 KLUWER ACADEMIC
                PUBL, DORDRECHT


ABSTRACT:       Today science policy makers in many countries worry about
a brain drain, i.e., about permanently losing their best scientists to
other countries. However, such a brain drain has proven to be difficult
to measure. This article reports a test of bibliometric methods that
could possibly be used to study the brain drain on the micro-level. An
investigation of elite mobility must solve the three methodological
problems of delineating a specialty, identifying a specialty's elite and
identifying international mobility and migration. The first two problems
were preliminarily solved by combining participant lists from elite
conferences (Gordonconferences) and citation data. Mobility was measured
by using the address information of publication data bases. The
delineation of specialties has been identified as the crucial problem in
studying elite mobility on the micro-level. Policy concerns of a brain
drain were confirmed by measuring the mobility of the biomedical
Angiotensin specialty.

AUTHOR ADDRESS: G Laudel, Australian Natl Univ, Res Eval & Pol Project, Res
                Sch Social Sci, Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia