Resolution on Brain Drain

published 23 July 2004 updated 31 March 2017


1. Recognises the complexity of "Brain Drain" as a phenomenon affecting education personnel and notes the acceleration of brain drain and the pressures of globalisation, and is aware that it generates a range of potential benefits or disadvantages to the countries and individuals concerned.

2. Instructs the Executive Board to conduct a study of brain drain in the context of globalisation and growing mobility of education and research personnel, with a view to developing protocols for the regulation of brain drain:

a. to protect in particular the capacity of less developed countries which lose skilled personnel to brain drain;

b. to protect from exploitation and discrimination in employment, skilled personnel traded from less developed countries to more industrialised nations;

c. to ensure and guarantee the rights of skilled personnel who return to their home countries under fair conditions;

d. to monitor and facilitate the integration of skilled personnel in their country of origin;

e. to address the problems of supply of skilled personnel in industrialised countries and the problems of poor management of human resources in developing countries, problems which are one of the causes of brain drain.

3. These protocols are to be used in negotiations with international institutions and national governments, in order to mitigate the effects of brain drain.