Emanuelle Degli Esposti in The New Statesman:
… Italy is the only Western European country where the number of intellectuals leaving the country so grossly outweighs those coming in. The fact that a wealthy, developed nation with such a rich cultural history is being slowly leeched of its talent is a highly troubling development.
Because the sad truth of the matter is that the system that has failed its own people also fails to attract new talent to its shores. High levels of corruption, low spending on academic research and a convoluted and frustrating bureaucratic system mean that foreign brains end up looking elsewhere.
June 3rd, 2011 at 12:55PM
Italy recently indicted a seismologist for failing to predict an earthquake.
June 4th, 2011 at 7:02AM
wait, when did Italy become a wealthy, developed nation? cause last I checked, it’s a third world country with a few tourist-friendly cities.
June 4th, 2011 at 8:00AM
Well, the north of Italy occasionally still looks like a wealthy developed nation…
June 4th, 2011 at 9:41AM
Northern Italy — sometimes as far south as Rome — is a wealthy developed nation. On the other hand, I’ve never had a personal conversation with a non-tenured Italian academic that didn’t turn to job opportunities in America. And my closest acquaintance who IS tenured wonders about opportunities for her students. And they’re almost all from the University of Rome I (la Sapienza), which is considered well-funded.
June 4th, 2011 at 5:12PM
A number of Italian students and graduates come to France because of such reasons (and because French is easy, apparently, if you are a native Italian speaker). As a consequence, France has a number of Italian professors in theoretical computer science…