After several decades marked by fierce competition to attract foreign talent, many states are now seeking to reverse migration flows in order to reclaim their own scientific, technological, and entrepreneurial elites.
Behind this dynamic lies much more than a simple demographic or social issue: it is a strategic battle over the mastery of technologies, productivity, and economic sovereignty.
In a world where growth relies increasingly on innovation, highly skilled talent has become critical national assets. According to OECD and World Bank data, more than 38 million highly skilled people live today outside their country of origin, a figure that has almost doubled in twenty years. The sectors most affected remain digital technologies, health, advanced engineering, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and scientific research.
Policies for repatriating skills now resemble each other from one continent to another. Tax incentives, subsidies for innovation, investment facilitation, privileged access to financing, creation of technological ecosystems, improvement of living conditions and career prospects constitute the main levers mobilized. The objective is clear: transform the qualified diaspora into a driver of growth, technological transfer, and industrialization.
Singapore, global laboratory of human capital
Few countries illustrate this strategy as well as Singapore. From the 1980s onwards, the city-state understood that its lack of natural resources forced it to invest in knowledge, research, and technology. As it welcomed Western and Japanese multinationals, it gradually required the establishment of research and development activities alongside production units.
