Harold Salzman Beatriz Clewell Leonard Lynn Urban Institute
The development of science and engineering (S&E) human capital is undergoing profound change as a result of corporate globalization, advances in communications technologies, and geopolitical policy changes in the U.S. and in emerging economies. A global system of human capital development, composed of more closely coupled elements and more complex interactions is developing. No longer are "flows" unidirectional, with human capital flowing to the U.S. and advanced innovation emanating almost exclusively from the U.S., Europe, and Japan. Instead, new patterns of S&E human capital flows and location of S&E activities are challenging the longstanding patterns that gave these nations a predominant position. Growth of the U.S. S&E workforce, and the country's high levels of innovation, have long benefited from in-flows of highly talented people from newly industrializing economies. These inflows were attracted by the location of much of the world's leading-edge science and engineering in firms and universities in the United States. There are signs that this U.S. advantage is declining. Emerging patterns of immigration and easing geographic constraints on the location of S&E work are evoking concern about the ability of the U.S. to maintain a leading S&E workforce, and thus to maintain its current leadership in science and engineering. S&E workforce development and leading-edge science and engineering are now shaped by a global system of firms, governments, and educational institutions that, in turn, shape the decision making of individual actors, the educational administrators, workers, and students themselves.
A cross-disciplinary team of organizational, engineering, business, education policy, immigration and population, and labor market researchers will examine this emerging global system. This project is composed of three components. The first component extends the project team's current research on the transfer of high level engineering work by U.S., European, and Japanese multinationals to emerging economies. In building on this research, the PIs examine the impact of knowledge work globalization on U.S. corporate strategies and on investment in human capital development. This includes the impact of changes in the location of knowledge work on university/industry collaborations and work force development systems. The second component is an industry/occupation analysis of immigrant flows in the science and engineering workforce as well as national employment and wage trends for S&E workers, building on a detailed analysis of U.S. and international data sources. A key question is how the globalization of S&E work is affecting the demand for, and supply of S&E trained workers. The third component focuses on university enrollment trends and recruitment strategies in graduate science and engineering fields, building on work on the participation of underrepresented groups in the science and engineering pipeline and workforce.
Broader Impacts. The projects contribute to the development of a framework of global human capital development that includes migration flows and education systems, with a specific focus on knowledge workers and the location of S&E activities. The project addresses social issues of longstanding concern to the scientific community and of society in general by examining the conditions, policies, and practices in the development of the science and engineering workforces, policies, and practices that could increase the numbers of underrepresented populations in the science and engineering fields, and education and human resource policies. The study also places in a broader, more global framework, the recent declines in foreign student enrollments in U.S. S&E graduate programs.
