Drain to gain: How India can retain its talent

ARINDAM GOSWAMI AND SRINIVASAN IYENGAR

India’s saga with intellectual brain drain is one of missed opportunity, chronic structural lapses, and complex stimuli that have propelled some of the brightest minds out of the country’s research landscape, despite India today commanding global admiration for its prowess in digital technology, frugal innovation, and homegrown talent fuelling Silicon Valley. The government’s recent claim that the Vaibhav Fellowship scheme has returned just 36 scientists is a bracing reminder of the size of our problem: a high-tech, networked diaspora numbering in the tens of thousands, contrasted with tokenist attempts to win them back. This predicament is the cumulative result of deep-seated “donor country” and “recipient country” stimuli – forces that shape the flows of global expertise.

The idea of intellectual migration, or “brain drain,” is well-explained by the interaction of two groups of stimuli: those that drive talent away from their home nations (donor country stimuli) and those that irresistibly attract them to other destinations (recipient country stimuli). This cycle has repeated with striking consistency throughout the 20th century. In the aftermath of World War I, the devastated Balkans, especially Hungary, saw waves of scientists fleeing war-torn cities for intellectual salons and safely funded labs in the West. Donor country pressures – political instability, lack of opportunity, scientific persecution – routinely combine with recipient country attractions – robust research ecosystems, social tolerance, generous funding, and prestige – to channel human capital across borders.

The 1930s furnished an enduring template: as fascism strangled academic life in Germany and Central Europe, Jewish scientists escaped rising antisemitism and existential threat. Names like Albert Einstein and John von Neumann found a haven in the United States, whose land-grant university system and insatiable demand for scientific advancement made it the recipient par excellence. The migration of Soviet physicists and mathematicians in the 1990s, disenchanted with the demise of state-funded research and a collapsing economy, reinforced further the hypothesis of stimuli-based talent migration. The United States, already the gravitational hub of science, actively attracted these brains.

For decades, Chinese researchers gravitated toward Western institutions, seeking freedom from bureaucratic inertia, censorship, and underfunded labs. But as China systematically reformed its higher education and research ecosystem – investing billions in R&D, offering competitive salaries, and streamlining career incentives – it succeeded in converting itself into a “recipient country.” Tsinghua University, once dismissed as an also-ran, began luring home talent from Stanford, MIT, and Berkeley, dramatically improving its publication and patent output, and establishing Beijing as a global node for AI and computer sciences.

India faces the paradox of being both a donor and, at most, a reluctant recipient. India is globally feted for its vaccine exports, space missions, and fintech innovations. However, it has yet to create the institutional lures necessary to aspirationally attract, let alone repatriate, its most ambitious scientists. Our diaspora may lead AI labs at Google or cancer centres at Harvard, but the domestic academic ecosystem fails to ignite their return.

Although it hosts entrance exams that are among the most competitive in the world, India’s universities suffer from deep-rooted structural issues. Where Indian professors are typically granted long-term job security from day one, institutions in the West – especially in the US – enforce a gruelling tenure-track process. The latter demands sustained research productivity, success in securing external grants, laboratory leadership, exceptional teaching, and doctoral mentorship over a 5-7 year probation. Lacking equivalent mechanisms, Indian academia often breeds frustration or inertia.

Further, starting salaries for assistant professors are disproportionately low relative to the cost of lengthy doctoral study. Departments are underfunded, infrastructure is often inadequate, and faculty must negotiate capricious bureaucratic obstacles just to access research funds or procure laboratory equipment. While Western universities typically shield research faculty from the brunt of bureaucracy and allow instruction-heavy roles to be handled by teaching-focused staff, Indian institutions pile large undergraduate class sizes atop research expectations, hindering focused scholarly inquiry. Unless India introduces differentiated faculty tracks and invests substantially in research capacity, the country’s brightest minds will not see academia as a viable career.

Back to the drawing board

India requires a foundational overhaul to position itself as a true “recipient” country.

First, it must dramatically ramp up financial incentives. India should consider establishing a prestigious national programme for “Frontier Fellows” that also attracts international experts, and offers five-year fully funded group leader packages, rapid lab set-up support, and a promise of meaningful influence in shaping national research agendas.

Second, India must invest in world-class infrastructure that matches the standards of the best Western institutions. The creation of Special Science Zones within and beyond existing campuses, exempt from bureaucratic and procurement delays, could revolutionise the environment for both local and returning scholars.

Third is the introduction of rigorous, transparent, and structured career incentives. The tenure process of academics needs to be revamped: contract hiring, serious mid-career review, strong mentorship systems, merit-based promotion, and differentiated teaching and research tracks must become the standard.

Fourth, research grants should be merit-based, disbursed with minimal bureaucracy, and protected from political interference. Empowering university leaders while reducing administrative red tape will allow creative science to flourish. Under participatory governance models in academia, India should pilot “academic senates” within major universities, where representatives of returning and local researchers, graduate students, and industry partners have an explicit role in faculty recruitment, research evaluation, and infrastructure planning.

Finally, the integration of Indian academia with global networks must be made seamless. Young researchers will not choose India because of patriotic sentiment alone; they need the same scale, freedom, and recognition as established scientific superpowers.

(Arindam is a research analyst in the high-tech geopolitics programme at the Takshashila Institution; Srinivasan is the CTO for the energy and resources industry in Asia at a multinational technology company)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.