In a globalising world, the international mobility of academics and researchers is important for their career. However, increasing migration of academics in the form of an academic brain drain is becoming a major challenge especially for Europe due to an ageing population. The issue of brain drain has been addressed usually through quantitative studies that fail to explore the in-depth reasons behind it, and present standard outcomes. Through a synthesis of qualitative literature over two decades (2000–2020), this paper presents a new perspective of the root causes of academic brain drain in Europe. After careful examination of the qualitative literature, five factors have been found to be responsible for the outflow of human capital. These include: (1) attractive salaries outside Europe; (2) short-term fixed contracts for early career researchers; (3) unfair recruitment procedures; (4) attractive migration policies and (5) the indirect role played by internationalisation policies to encourage permanent mobility.

中文翻译：

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欧洲学术人才流失：元合成

在全球化的世界中，学者和研究人员的国际流动对其职业至关重要。然而，由于人口老龄化，以学术人才外流的形式增加学者的流动正成为一项重大挑战，特别是对于欧洲而言。人才流失的问题通常是通过定量研究来解决的，而定量研究未能探究其背后的深层原因，无法提出标准的结果。通过对过去二十年（2000-2020年）的定性文献的综合，本文提出了欧洲学术人才流失根源的新观点。在仔细研究定性文献后，发现有五个因素与人力资本外流有关。其中包括：（1）欧洲以外的诱人薪水；（2）早期职业研究人员的短期固定合同；（三）不正当招募程序；（4）有吸引力的移民政策；（5）国际化政策在鼓励永久性流动方面所发挥的间接作用。