Global talent conference

The Levin Institute with the Council on Foreign Relations’ Maurice R. Greenberg Center for Geoeconomic Studies recently hosted a conference titled: The Evolving Global Talent Pool: Issues, Challenges, and Strategic Implications. For two days, scholars, business people, and policymakers discussed topics ranging from the impact of globalization on corporate talent to the policies and politics affecting the future dynamics of the global talent pool.

Their website has a summary. One of the most interesting points was Jon Sigurdson's that R&D internationalization/offshoring (or whatever you want to call spreading R&D labs around the world) the national innovation system has disappeared because it is no longer useful. Only defense, education, and health care are still determined at the national level. I would argue that regional systems (with links between them) are gaining even more importance. Conference attendees discussed the potential for R&D to spread beyond its current limited clusters, and how to get talent to be more mobile and still promote national economies.

After talking to people involved in R&D in India, I have become particularly interested in issues of supply and demand of research talent. Here is Dieter Ernst's take on the topic:

R&D and how innovation works are critical issues to consider when cultivating the global talent pool. Dieter Ernst argued that as innovation is internationalized, R&D labs will require more talent, specifically local talent. While the required knowledge and salaries continue to rise, qualified candidates are becoming scarcer, particularly in Asia, but overall, the talent supply exceeds the demand. Dieter Ernst concluded that internationalization of innovation is a product of competitive pressures creating transnational knowledge communities. While China is developing its local talent pool to work in foreign R&D centers, smaller nations are harnessing their talent supply and harmonizing their economic systems under APEC.