Switzerland is world best - namely concerning the number of foreign researchers. In 2011, the fraction of foreign researchers working in Switzerland was 57%, with close runner-ups being Canada with 47%, Australia 45%, USA and Sweden with 38% each [1]. Indeed, when I consider nationalities of graduate students and postdocs in chemistry at our university, I would rather put this number to 95%. They mostly come from Eastern Europe, Middle-East, India, or China. Finding someone that was born and trained in Switzerland is a challenge. The situation in natural sciences and engineering at other Swiss universities is similar, including the Swiss Federal Institutes (ETHZ, EPFL). While at the latter institutions you do find few graduate students trained in Switzerland, but again, the vast majority comes from abroad. This trend propagates at the universities all the way to the professorial level, but also into industry. In Switzerland, this kind of situation is nothing new. Entire branches of the economy have been relying almost exclusively on foreign workforce, for example, construction business, hotels, and nursing services. So the only new aspect is that one should add natural sciences and engineering to the list.
Why is that? Let me here focus on natural sciences, as almost the same patterns concern physics, chemistry, biology, and geology. The situation is similar in mathematics, computer sciences, engineering, life sciences, and medicine. But since I am not really familiar with those, and I will only focus on natural sciences here.
One likely reason is the low fraction of students entering the natural science curricula at universities. To be allowed to enter the university, you must have passed the maturity exam (in Germany referred to as "Abitur"), and in Switzerland only about 20% of the youngsters pass this hurdle. Moreover, natural sciences curricula at universities are rather selective, as often only less than half of the entering students will make it to their degree.
In Switzerland, many others learn a profession through an apprenticeship. Some of those can also pass the maturity exam (referred to as the professional maturity exam, or in German "Berufsmatur"), which makes an additional 10%. But accessing the universities in this way is not easy. But still, even when one takes the 30% as a reference value, this number is low in comparison with other European countries.
The possibility to learn a profession through an apprenticeship is often being advocated as a recipe against unemployment, which seems indeed to work in Switzerland, Germany, or Netherlands. However, almost 50% pass the maturity exam in Germany, and one finds only 23% of foreign researchers in this country [1]. I can confirm this aspect from my personal experience. In Germany, most chemists are German and most of them were trained in Germany. The small number of natural scientists trained in Switzerland is therefore mainly due to the low success rates of the maturity examination and the selectivity of the university curricula. The possibility to obtain professional training through an apprenticeship is certainly sensible, but has little to do with the problem of the small number of trained natural scientists [2].
The selectivity of the maturity examination and of the university curricula is surely not the only reason for this small number. Swiss youngsters are hardly motivated getting a degree in natural sciences. Many universities, including ours, offer rather elaborate programs for school children, which is nothing but an advertisement for such degrees. But clearly, the youngsters entering the universities prefer business or law, where it might be maybe easier getting a degree and to make money.
Unfortunately, the training offered by Swiss universities in natural sciences takes a long time and is not at a very high quality level either. Professors often teach the same courses over and over, there is hardly any review of the curricula and their content. The contact between students and professors is sporadic, with the result that students receiving their degrees are poorly motivated and by international standards are rather old and have an average education only. Given the harsh selection, this situation is frustrating. Maybe Switzerland is indeed hostile towards education and scholarship, as the Swiss historian Philipp Sarasin argues [2]. Education is typically being seen as a vehicle for getting a job, and hardly as an intellectual asset for a functioning and well-informed society.
One should be not surprised that under such circumstances research institutions and companies prefer to hire internationally, where they often find younger, better motivated, and better trained people and - alas - those willing to work for lower salaries. Viewed from abroad, Switzerland offers exceedingly good salaries indeed. Obviously, this situation creates a vicious circle, as the job market becomes increasingly oriented towards the foreign workforce, and as a consequence even less youngsters will go into natural sciences. This development became very prominent in the entire chemical sector, but is surely also present in others. One often refers to a shortage of highly skilled workers in natural sciences and engineering [3], but I wonder whether this shortage is does not rather serve as a dummy argument to maintain the status quo. Many profit from the present system.
Is this a problem? Switzerland is surely doing reasonably well as a country, surely better than others. So why not simply import scientists from abroad, as it already was (and is) customary with construction workers, hotel staff, or nurses. Moreover, natural scientists are expensive to train, and it is surely cheaper to train in Switzerland only a few, and to import the rest.
Michio Kaku who is a physicist and strongly involved in societal aspects, is extremely skeptical about this kind of situation, which is similar in the US, and which he simply calls the "brain drain" [2]. The US is also unable to train sufficient numbers of skilled natural scientists, and - as Switzerland - fills the empty ranks with researchers from abroad. Indeed, the US is one of the runner-ups of Switzerland concerning the number of foreign researchers. By quoting Freeman Dyson, Kaku even goes further [2]. A society is seen to be in decline when the brightest no longer tackle the most difficult problems in mathematics and natural sciences, but their goal frequently becomes massaging and managing other people's money.
Maybe, the situation is not as dramatic. Switzerland, Canada, Australia, and the US have been immigrant countries over centuries, and as such, and they have relied on immigrants as their labor force. However, when the immigrants are highly educated, this surely becomes an unfair "brain drain". These scientists would be probably more needed there where they come from.
Western societies have probably never been as dependent on advanced technologies as today, but we seem to be unable to motivate enough our own people to acquire these skills that are needed develop these technologies further. Thus, the first obvious step would be to let more students into all levels of the education system, as the severe Swiss selection scheme surely missed many capable ones. Whether that suffices, remains to be seen.
Michal Borkovec, February 5, 2018
References
[1] Schweizerischer Nationalfonds - Akademien Schweiz: Horizonte 101, Juni 2014, page 20, link.
[2] Philipp Sarasin, Wieso die Schweiz so bildungsfeindlich ist, Tages Anzeiger, 11.10.2011, link link.
[3] Mangel an MINT-Fachkräften in der Schweiz, Bericht des Bundesrates, August 2010, link.
[4] Michio Kaku, Physics of the Future , Penguin Books, 2012, link.
There are no comments on this article yet. You may enter one with the button below.