More funding needed to halt brain drain in eastern Europe

Eastern European researchers struggle to win enough funding from national and international sources to prevent brain drain, a survey has shown.

One-third of the eastern European researchers that participated in a survey carried out by the Swiss National Science Foundation said they could not find sufficient national funding to make collaboration worthwhile. The survey was part of the Scopes project, which aims to foster cooperation between Switzerland and the countries that joined the EU in 2004 and 2007. 

In the survey, researchers from eastern Europe also said that not enough grants are given to doctoral students, leading to many of them leaving the country. They urged their national governments and Switzerland to fund more doctoral students and researchers within eastern Europe under Scopes, which has a budget of 16 million Swiss francs (€13.3m) for the period 2013-16.