Mobility patterns of researchers

Changes in the structure and priorities of funding research and educational activities are accompanied by restructuring of the labour market for scientists, including new requirements to their mobility, both on national and international levels. The research pursues the following objectives: firstly, to operationalize the concept of social mobility, separating it from directly observable relocations; and secondly, to build a structural model explaining results of measuring mobility.

The analysis of Russian researches’ mobility was based on the data collected within a monitoring survey career of doctorate holders undertaken in 2010. This study is a part of an international project “Mapping of Careers of Doctorate Holders” initiated by OECD. A multi-step stratified sample was used, with respondent quotas based on gender, age, research field and geographical area. Total sample size was 3,450 people (doctorate holders).

The analysis identifies major trends in the professional area (inter-sectoral, institutional, international etc.); secondary employment; and changing specialisation of researchers’ social shifts. A conceptual model of researchers’ social mobility is proposed. It was empirically established that mobility within the analysed sample conforms to Pareto's Law. To explain mobility from the sociological point of view, a scientific capital model was built, describing emerging social characteristics of researchers.

The results reveal connection between mobility patterns and various social characteristics in the scientific community as well as its dependence on researchers’ scientific capital.