Roundup: University funding cutbacks create "academic refugees" leaving Finland

Continued cutbacks in university funding have caused a brain drain from Finland, with natural sciences and liberal arts particularly affected.

Finnish universities, traditionally relying on public budgeting, have become financially independent organizations that have to procure private funding to complement the governmental fiscal allocation since 2010.

In the new situation, the universities had to reduce staff. Actual dismissals have amounted to 976 persons so far, but with voluntary exits, the number is 1720, according to information collected by staffer unions.

Jaakko Hameen-Anttila, a professor of Arabic studies who moved to Britain, has become the face of the wave of "academic refugees." He voluntarily gave up his position in Helsinki and switched to Edinburgh, Scotland.

Interviewed by newspaper Helsingin Sanomat last week, he said the cutback of public financing was an ideological choice by right wing governments.

Young researchers increasingly choose opportunities abroad for better pay and more secure funding.

Jukka Westermark, one of the leading cancer researchers in Finland, said on national broadcaster Yle that only ten percent of applicants get public funding for research projects via the Academy of Finland.

"Researchers who have gone temporarily abroad often do not come back. Here they would have to compete for funding, while abroad a certain future is often promised," Westermark said.

Whole researcher teams have left, often for Sweden or Norway. For example in medicine field, where younger talents join projects started by senior researchers, with reduced funding, the choice has been either to dissolve the groups or to go abroad.

Responding to the criticism, Anita Lehikoinen, the highest civil servant at the Ministry of Education, said on Yle that Finnish universities should feature bigger units that could be more attractive.

Petri Koikkalainen, chairman of the Union of Finnish University Researchers and Teachers, dismissed the view that private financing could replace the vacuum created by the decline of public funding. "Finland has no tradition of direct corporate funding to universities," he told Xinhua.

Elli Heikkila, research director at the Finnish Institute for Migration in Turku, said to Xinhua that the "forced migration" of academics is in sharp contrast against the backdrop of the reputation of Finland as a education-friendly country.

The bigger picture of Finnish emigration resembles the academic scene. While the overall balance of immigration is positive on account of the influx of asylum seekers, the figures comprising Finnish citizens are negative, Heikkila said. A total of 9,628 Finnish citizens moved abroad in 2015 and 7,332 moved back. Endit