1. QUALIFIED SPECIALISTS HAVE A RELATIVELY SMALL SHARE IN GENERAL NUMBER OF UKRAINIAN LABOUR MIGRANTS.

Unfortunately, the real numbers of ‘brain drain’ from Ukraine are impossible to be defined due to several reasons: lack of accurate statistics, uncertainty of the term ‘highly-qualified professional’ (some Ukrainian experts are inclined to consider such to be only the researches and academics of the highest category).

In general the abovementioned pertains to the whole situation of studying the issue of new labour migration from Ukraine. The numbers of the migration scale are still questioned – 5 to 7 millions of people going for earnings abroad are reported. The experts are inclined that the latter digit is the essential exaggeration and the highest number of Ukrainians working abroad does not exceed 2 millions of people. Studying social-demographic characteristics of migrants is even worse including the level of the professional skills and education. It is completely unknown what is the share of the highly-qualified workers among the overall number of labour migrants, but even the conclusion driven form the mixed data (information on the average level of Ukrainian migrants) allows to state that intensity of ‘brain drain’ can not be regarded as extremely high – it is relatively equal to migration of highly-qualified professionals from the majority of Eastern-European countries.

For example, sociological data on education level of Ukrainian labour migrants announced during the Parliamentary hearings on ‘Situation and problems of legal and social status of current Ukrainian labour migration’ (Kyiv, 17 November 2004)  reflected the following. The education level of Ukrainian labour migrants (10,9 years of studying) was insignificantly but lower than education level of the population employed on the territory of residence (for Ukraine the figures are 11,4 years). The high education level was the characteristic of the Ukrainian labour migrants in the United Kingdom (12,5 years of studying), USA and Canada (12,3), Austria, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Luxemburg, France (11,8). Education level of the Ukrainian migrants working in Israel (11,5), Spain, Greece, Portugal (11 years) is higher than the average from overall numbers. And in the Russian Federation, Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia it is lower than 10,7 years. It is clear that the share of migrants with higher education is higher in those countries where the indicators of migrants’ education level are above average (UK – 41,7%, Canada and USA – 39,1%). However, the question of how many of those people are actually working using their qualification and how many of them occupied the market for local lower-qualified workers in those countries is still open.

So, even if there are significant numbers of professionals with higher-education in the country, they still do not dominate in the general number of migrants. Ukrainian labour migration in 1990 - beginning of 2000 (nineteen-nineties beginning of two thousands) is primarily the migration of ‘labour-hands’ and not of the qualified professionals or academics.

2.  OVER THE LAST DECADE UKRAINE SIGNIFICANTLY LOST A PART OF ITS ACADEMIC-RESEARCH POTENTIAL AND HIGHLY-QUALIFIED PROFESSIONALS, HOWEVER IT WAS NOT DUE TO EXTERNAL LABOUR MIGRATION.

The Ombudsman appointed by the Parliament in the Report on ‘Situation with the rights of the Ukrainian citizens abroad’ (2003) relevantly noted that actually nobody studies the problem of the situation with professionals from the academic and research institutions flowing out and leaving the country. As well as the statistics given by the State Statistics Committee is just formal and it does not reflect the real situation . Therefore, we can provide only very approximate data that is more to illustrate the trends but not to reliably certify on the real migration numbers. More or less reliable data is given by statistics on individuals with the academic level but still only on those working within the academic institutions of National Academy of Science of Ukraine.
So, the number of academics that conducted researches in 1990 was 313 thousands of people, including those holding an academic status 32,5 thousands people. In 2001 those numbers approached 113 thousands of people including 21,4 academic status holders. That means that the number of people involved in academic researches lowered three times and of people with the highest qualification – by one third. In the same time, according to the State Statistics Committee data from the period of 1991-2002, 574 Doctors emigrated abroad and during 1996-2002 – 907 Candidates for Doctorship (equivalent to the Doctor’s degree in the Western European academic system).

According to data of Board of the Ukrainian Academy of Science, there were 3838 members of academic staff that emigrated, including 3399 left for temporary work and internship, among them were 842 Doctors and 2358 Candidates for Doctorship. In 1992-2002 3439 academics left for permanent residency, including 101 Doctor and 275 Candidates for Doctorship. Besides, 3544 academics, including 778 Doctors and 2226 Candidates for Doctorship remained abroad on temporary bases.

In this respect, while the outflow from the academic and research sector had place during last fifteen years, it was the very insignificant part that continued working abroad, and even less part that continued applying their qualification and occupied position adequately to those been held in Ukraine. The issue of essential loss caused by ‘brain outflow’ can be only brought up with regard to the certain fields (chemists, physicians, etc), while professionals from other fields happened not to be able to compete on the foreign labour markets. The majority changed qualification and joined the numbers of businessmen, moving to other fields of services and so on.

Therefore, theses frequently repeated by the Ukrainian mass media about 30% of the Ukrainian academics that apparently moved abroad is too far exaggerated even regarding those Ukrainian academics that do not conduct any research activities abroad. However, such issue should be dwelled on: the average age of academic status holders in Ukraine is very high – the average candidate for doctorship is over 50 years old. Two thirds of those who emigrated were younger than that. So regardless of not that impressive quantitative personnel outflow, it was the essential qualitative loss that may affect future development of the Ukrainian science. Therefore, the move of some professionals abroad had a positive effect (they ‘remained in their field’). However in terms of outflow and degradation of academics in Ukraine, this loss could cause negative results for prospective Ukrainian academic and research development (entire research fields are facing a lack of personnel. Also, a big generation gap occurs – the most senior and the youngest specialists remain in Ukraine).

3. UKRAINE STILL HASN’T LOST THE UKRAINIAN HUMAN RESOURCES WORKING ABROAD, INCLUDING EUROPE

Besides the stereotype, Ukraine still hasn’t lost its national human resources that work abroad, particularly in Europe. The majority of them do not except the option of returning to Ukraine. If asked, they would state that they care about what is going on in their home country. Even those not planning to go back to Ukraine, are completely inclined to support Ukraine. This could be proved by proposal from the group of highly-qualifies migrants from Ukraine that work in the research centres of Denmark, Switzerland, France and Germany . They state that demand for the qualified personnel should be considered as another export source of Ukraine. The country also maintained its competitive education system at least in some fields. Besides, the motivation of young people to go into academic research is higher in Ukraine. So, the conditions should be created for placing an order and controlling the ‘brain outflow’ transforming it into ‘export of personnel’. That would simultaneously enable the utmost effective implementation of intellectual and professional country’s potential as well as support its education system.

In order to ‘limit’ Ukrainian researches and academics leaving abroad for good, the Western funds are offered for building Research and Fundamental Education Centres inside Ukraine. Such centres would employ researches providing an appropriate wage for their research and academic work. It should be noted that some number of researchers are de-facto working abroad by obtaining grants from the organizations abroad while being in Ukraine and going teaching abroad just formally working on researches in the Ukrainian institutes. However, such situation is officially unsettled and it actually stimulates further trend of personnel leaving the country. Another positive aspect of ‘personnel export’ is creation of the sort-of intellectual community of the Ukrainians abroad, that could help Ukrainian students and PhD aspirants abroad and would also provide consultations to the Ukrainian research and state institutions. Actually, this was the way some of the post-Soviet countries, for example Georgia, did.

However, some Ukrainian academics and officials are rather sceptical about this kind of projects. They regard that benefits out of the external migration with further return of professionals and ties with the foreign national communities would not be substantial for long while. Moreover, transition from totally free education of professionals in Ukraine to the one that would require reimbursement in case of departure abroad for a permanent residence –such principle would apply to those whose education has been covered by the national tax payers. However, considering the human potential loss, the reimbursement amount must be calculated according to the world education costs instead of Ukrainian . Such mechanism is a sad reminiscence from the Soviet times. It was then, when the reimbursement for education in the USSR was demanded from the Jews leaving abroad for good. This is why the practicality of ‘the direct compensations’ model is much doubted. And in this regard, the abovementioned model of ‘indirect compensations’ that implies acquiring Western funds for establishing Fundamental Education Centre and consolidation of Ukrainian communities abroad seems to be more attractive and perspective.

It should be stressed that this issue has now only began to be discussed among academics and officials, so it is too early to foresee which way Ukraine will head on in order to solve the problem of highly-qualified professionals outflow. It will be due to many aspects related to the internal transformations and to the success of its European/Euro-Atlantic aspirations.