International networks and flows of academic talent: Overseas recruitment in Australian universities

Flows of academic talent among nations are an important factor in the transmission of values and knowledge throughout the world. As a point of entry for a study of international networks through which these flows occur, appointments to all universities in a single society, Australia, are examined for the years 1961–1974.During this period approximately 40 percent of appointees to academic positions in Australian universities came from overseas. Although there were fluctuations around this mean value, no major overall trends were discerned. The proportion of overseas appointments, however, was inversely related to university size, but unrelated to institutional age or total appointments.There has been a decrease in the proportion of appointees coming from British universities, and an increase from American universities. However over half of the appointees from the latter in 1970 were returning Australians.Some implications of these academic flow patterns are suggested, as are directions for future research.Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the Sixth Annual Conference of the Australian Association for Research in Education, Adelaide, November 1975, and at the Institute for International Education, University of Stockholm, 1976.We would like to express our appreciation to the Department of Sociology (Arts), Australian National University (A.N.U.), for the initial grant that made it possible to begin this project, and to the A.N.U. Advisory Commitee on Science and Technology Policy Research for funds allowing us to continue it.