The talent express: where our research expertise comes from

Research talent is in continual motion, flying into Australia but also disappearing overseas. We show which countries give us their talent, and take it.

Research talent is in continual motion around the world, coming into Australia but also disappearing overseas

Research is global and, more than every before, research talent is moving around the world, with researchers attracted by job opportunities, availability of funding, and the chance to work in the top facilities and teams where they can achieve their research goals.

The movement of researchers in and out of Australia is a continual ebb and flow. But over time, there is a net inflow to Australia from some countries and a net outflow to others, and that is what the data on this page is designed to show.

Australia has a net outflow of research talent to the countries on the left side of the diagram and a net inflow of talent from the countries on the right.

Countries near the middle of the diagram, such as the US, are in balance, with the number of researchers who leave Australia for the US nearly matching the number who move in the opposite direction. But countries near the edges of the diagram have a strong net flow of researchers either to, or from, Australia.

Talent discovery and research analytics firm League of Scholars has compiled the data by examining, on a large scale, the institutional research affiliation of researchers and focusing on those who have moved to, or away from, Australia over the past seven years.

This metric, the net talent gain percentage, is an indicator of the relative size of the net movement of researchers between Australia and each other country. It does not reflect the overall numbers of researchers moving between pairs of countries. In other words, there is no bias due to the size of a country or the size of a country’s talent gains or losses.

The metric calculated by taking the net gain or net loss of researchers (those arriving in Australia minus those leaving) and dividing it by the total number of new arrivals, resulting in a percentage. It is based on a sample of over 8000 verified movements by researchers into Australia from OECD countries and out of Australia to OECD countries from 2017 to 2024.

Because we examine only OECD countries the data leaves out some significant research talent movements, such as those with China.