Study shows impact of war on researchers’ movement within and beyond Ukraine
To the point:
- Researcher mobility: Researchers in Ukraine moved within the country and abroad between 2009 and 2022, with conflict zones losing scholars and other regions becoming new centers of research activity.
- Publication data: The study analyzed scientific publications and author affiliations to trace researcher movements over more than a decade at a detailed regional level.
- Regional differences: Donetsk and Luhansk lost many researchers to other Ukrainian regions, while Crimea experienced significant international researcher loss after 2014.
A study based on publication data traces how researchers moved within Ukraine and across borders between 2009 and 2022, with conflict-affected regions losing scholars while others became increasingly important destinations. These shifts were already underway after Russia illegally annexed Crimea and fighting began in the Donbas in 2014, underscoring that scholarly mobility during conflict cannot simply be understood as a matter of free choice.
Two days after Russian forces attacked Ukraine on multiple fronts in February 2022, the hashtag #ScienceForUkraine was already mobilizing international support for researchers affected by the war. Scholars are only one of the many groups whose lives and work are disrupted by armed conflict, but they are also commonly considered highly skilled migrants. Because their qualifications are sought after internationally, scholars are often assumed to have relatively good opportunities to decide whether and where to go.
In a new article published in Population and Development Review, Michael Zaslavsky (University of Wisconsin-Madison) and Aliakbar Akbaritabar (MPIDR and University of Rostock) put this assumption to the test by asking what happens to scholarly mobility when war restricts those choices. “The full-scale invasion made the displacement of Ukrainian researchers particularly visible, but our study shows that they were already leaving affected regions for other parts of Ukraine and abroad after Russia illegally annexed Crimea and fighting began in the Donbas in 2014,” summarizes Akbaritabar.
Following scholarly mobility through publications
To reconstruct these movements, Akbaritabar and Zaslavsky turned to one of the richest digital trails scholars leave behind: their scientific publications. These publications record the institutional affiliations of their authors – the universities, research institutes or other organizations they are professionally connected to. By examining affiliation data for tens of thousands of researchers region by region and following changes from 2009 to 2022, the authors could estimate scholarly mobility over more than a decade at an unusually fine geographical level.
One conflict, different regional patterns
The maps show the balance between researchers arriving and leaving, both within Ukraine and across national borders. Blue indicates net losses, while yellow indicates net gains.
© MPIDR
The results point to a redrawing of Ukraine’s scholarly map after 2014, but not to one uniform pattern. Between 2015 and 2017, Donetsk and Luhansk, the two main regions of the Donbas, were losing researchers on balance to other parts of Ukraine: for every 1,000 actively publishing scholars, there were about 54 more leaving than arriving in Donetsk and 46 more in Luhansk. Looking at mobility across national borders, Crimea stands out: international migration there produced a net loss of about 117 researchers per 1,000. Donetsk also recorded a substantial international loss of about 66 per 1,000.
Behind these losses, different dynamics were at work. While some regions saw more researchers leave for institutions abroad, others registered fewer arrivals from other countries. Even so, more scholars left than arrived in the east of the country. Changes were not confined to the areas directly affected by the conflict War, in other words, was associated not only with researchers leaving Ukraine, but also with changes in how they were distributed within the country.
One result particularly surprised the authors. “We expected more developed regions to retain their own researchers and attract new ones. Instead, we found that they could also be places from which scholars were better able to relocate,” explains Zaslavsky. One possible explanation is that scholars in these regions have stronger links to other research institutions and therefore more opportunities to relocate when crisis hits.
Academic mobility is not simply a free choice and matters for recovery
Publication histories show that scholars’ institutional bases changed, but not why individuals moved. Still, the authors argue that wartime scholarly migration cannot simply be understood as scholars freely choosing the best career opportunity. Qualifications and international connections do not necessarily protect researchers from forced displacement – or guarantee that those who want to leave can do so. Because researchers carry knowledge, professional networks, and opportunities for collaboration with them, where they move matters for both the places they leave and those that receive them.
The Ukrainian case therefore cannot be reduced to a simple story of “brain drain”: scholars not only left the country, but also moved between regions within it. Publicly available bibliometric data can complement surveys, administrative data, and qualitative research, helping to track where research systems are losing scholars and where researchers are relocating during crises. Such knowledge matters especially when countries eventually face the task of rebuilding their research communities and institutions.
