El New York Times incluye estos días un debate entre académicos franceses y norteamericanos sobre la emigración de científicos y académicos desde Francia a los EE.UU (la fuga de cerebros). Algunas frases:
Based on the standardized wages and salaries paid by French universities, the best salary a full professor will make at the end of his career is about $86,000 Once one passes the Agrégation -- a civil-service exam given to those wishing to become a full professor -- there is little incentive to publish. As a result, French academics publish less than their peers in other countries. France ranks sixth worldwide (after England, Japan, Germany and the United States) with 4.3 percent of publications in 2007, a decline from 5.4 percent in 1995. More important, if one looks at the share of citations in international journals from 2000-2009, France ranks 13th.
The French education system is a national catastrophe at every level. At the higher education level, the “grandes écoles” dominate and produce clones. The rest of the system is pretty chaotic. At the primary and secondary levels a neo-Darwinian system rewards the survival of those most capable of regurgitating what they have been forced to ingurgitate
The salaries at U.S. colleges for young science scholars are roughly three times higher than those in France, no small consideration. We also out-French the French when it comes to working conditions. Academics appreciate the better laboratories and more time for research (and fewer hours devoted to classroom teaching). No wonder that, from 1996 to 2006, 40 percent of the French science students who came to the U.S. for their education stayed in America. From 1971 to 1980 only 7 percent of the visiting French remained
The French spend less than one half as much per student on higher education than do the Americans, and only 1.3 percent of their G.D.P. on universities versus 2.9 percent in the United States.it is hardly surprising that French university professors covet the respect, high compensation, modern facilities, intellectual stimulation, innovation, flexibility and other workplace and economic opportunities afforded by quality American colleges and universities. My husband, president of New York Institute of Technology, has often said that one of the greatest challenges facing higher education over the next few decades will be a shortage of qualified faculty. America will continue to drain the best and brightest from abroad to help meet its needs. The story of France’s professoriate and higher education system is generally true for all of Europe, and it is worth noting that the English, German, Italian and Spanish have more professors in the U.S. than the French
Think of the money: start with the whopping Ivy League and Big Ten salaries, then toss in the grants from the National Institutes of Health, and then put a dollar value on the fact that the professors can start their own drug companies and take out patents on research funded by taxpayers like you and me. A professor can't do any of this under European type socialism. It would take enormous Gallic loyalty to turn down these opportunities.
De paso, he mirado el World University Ranking para ver dónde está la UAM. Puesto 213 para 2010. Pero con una enorme variación entre las materias. En Ciencias Naturales, estamos en un muy meritorio 61. En Ciencias Sociales, en el 156. Lo que nos baja es Ingeniería y Tecnologías de la Información porque hemos empezado hace poco. La buena noticia es que la posición ha mejorado en los últimos cuatro años.
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