Amid a series of notable exits of eminent chemists from the US to China, including Nobel Prize winner in chemistry Omar Yaghi, economic analysis reveals that a growing number of high-caliber scientists are making the journey back to China from the US, particularly in the field of chemistry. The influx of returnees to China increased from 31 scientists in 2004 – with more than 40% originating from the US – to over 1400 in 2022, of which over half came from the US. Data indicates that approximately 10,000 scientists of Chinese heritage returned to China between 2004 and 2022, including over 5500 from the US.
For Chinese scientists based in the US, those with the highest achievements – as measured by citation rates of their publications – are increasingly inclined to return to China. This trend over the 18 years appears to have been primarily influenced by advancements in chemistry. The probability of a highly cited chemist returning to China compared to one with fewer citations rose nearly five percentage points between 2003 and 2022, while the reverse was true for physicists and life scientists.
The success of these ‘sea turtles’ – a term from Mandarin slang for students studying abroad who subsequently return – showcases a similar trend. Returning chemists have outperformed their similarly qualified counterparts who stayed in the US. In contrast, returning life scientists did not fare as well against their peers in the US, while returning physicists exhibited varied outcomes.
Study co-author Bernard Yeung from the National University of Singapore mentions that he and fellow co-author Heiwei Tang from the University of Hong Kong are both ‘returnees’. Yeung, an economist born in Hong Kong who became a US citizen, moved from New York University to Singapore in 2008, while Tang transitioned from Johns Hopkins University (JHU) to Hong Kong in 2020.
‘We are essentially trying to leverage the data to narrate our experiences,’ Yeung tells Chemistry World. ‘We witnessed China’s rise – its advancement in cutting-edge science,’ he adds, stating that the team concentrated solely on research published in the most reputable scientific journals due to their reliability.
‘They find their home territory appealing’
‘The reason China excels in chemistry is due to significant government investment in this field, along with chemistry aligning well with China’s comparative advantages – it is an experimental science that necessitates relatively straightforward and cost-effective laboratories, especially compared to supercolliders, for instance,’ he clarifies. ‘Numerous Chinese individuals who studied abroad now find their homeland attractive due to the government’s overall investment in education, and particularly in science.’
Stanford University’s Center on China’s Economy and Institutions asserts that returnees have contributed to China’s rise in science, albeit unevenly. ‘The rise in scientists returning to China from abroad, predominantly from the US, aligns with China’s strengthening position in elite science,’ the center stated. ‘Findings indicate that the benefits of bringing scientists back home derive not only from their individual productivity but also significantly from how their presence alters the dynamics within laboratories, collaborations, and research cultures.’
Jeremy Berg, a biochemist formerly director of the US National Institutes of Health’s (NIH’s) National Institute of General Medical Sciences, shares that he has observed aspects of this ‘brain drain’ firsthand. An example he highlights is structural biologist Yigong Shi, who worked in his lab at JHU and whom Berg regards as ‘the most talented and ambitious scientist of his generation’ that he has ever met.
After his time at JHU, Shi accepted other prestigious positions in the US but was invited back to his alma mater Tsinghua University in Beijing as a dean around 2008. A decade later, he co-established Westlake University, the first private research university in China.
‘As Chinese universities strengthen and draw in top faculty, momentum in this area will continue to build,’ Berg forecasts. He points out that the life sciences in the US have seen considerable funding from the NIH, making researchers in those fields less likely to relocate to China, where life sciences research is less developed. ‘This is less applicable to chemistry, as funding in that area in the US has been more limited and China has a longstanding tradition in chemistry,’ Berg remarks.
The key takeaway from this new data is that science should transcend borders, as hindering the mobility of scientists leads to complications, Yeung states. ‘You require bees to cross-pollinate, and if barriers exist, it hinders the growth of flowers in both regions,’ he cautions.