By Ioanna Zikakou. In the midst of the financial crisis that hit Greece over 5 years ago, young people are leaving the country in search for a better future. This is another tragic side effect of the crisis that has cost Greece some of its brightest young scientists.
More than 100,000 Greek scientists are working or looking for a better job position abroad. Meanwhile, 30,000 Greeks are also studying out of the country and plan on setting up their lives away from their homeland. See more...

FINE porcelain, Chinese-landscape scrolls and calligraphy adorn the office of Shi Yigong, dean of the School of Life Sciences at Tsinghua University in Beijing. Little about his ornamentation hints at Mr Shi’s 18 years in America, where, like thousands of Chinese students, he decamped for graduate study in the early 1990s. Mr Shi eventually became a professor at Princeton University but he began to feel like a “bystander” as his native country started to prosper. In 2008, at the age of 40, he returned to his homeland. He was one of the most famous Chinese scholars to do so; an emblem for the government’s attempts to match its academic achievements to its economic ones. More...

By Professor Patrick Johnston, vice-chancellor Queen's University Belfast, and Professor Richard Barnett, vice-chancellor University of Ulster. One of Northern Ireland's greatest natural resources is our skilled, talented people. People who are the lifeblood of local and international businesses, the research base and ultimately, our economy.
Higher education contributes £1.5bn annually to the local economy, and is a key economic driver providing 8,000 high-quality graduates each year who are sought after by investors and indigenous businesses. More...

More and more Greeks are moving to Germany to complete their university studies in the hope of improving their chances in the job market. Radical cuts continue to threaten the quality of teaching in Greece.
Despite the quality of degrees in their homeland, an increasing number of Greek students are moving abroad to study. In Germany alone, between 2012 and 2013, the number of Greek students rose by 13 percent. In 2012, Germany's Federal Statistical Office totaled almost 6,000 Greek students, of which more than 1,100 had directly begun their studies in Germany. More...

By Torsten Wiesel. Overseas scholarships that encourage scientists to return to their home countries are helping to rebuild science in Latin America, says Torsten Wiesel.
It takes a long time for a country to build a strong base in science, but only a short time to destroy it. Germany was a sad example. It was a world leader in the sciences for more than a century, until its science base was demolished during the Nazi era, and the country ceded its position to the United States. It has taken decades for Germany to rise again to its current level of excellence. More...