Transferred Skills and University Excellence?: An Exploratory Analysis of the Geography of Mobility of UK Academic Staff

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Abstract
While considerable academic and political attention has been focussed on the international ‘Brain Drain’ of university staff, much less has been paid to the differences in patterns of recruitment within a national set of universities, and, in particular, the extent to which each recruits its own graduates (‘localism’) rather than those trained elsewhere. Some reasons are suggested why such ‘in-breeding’ may be deleterious to a university, and a simple model and typology of academic mobility patterns are developed as a prelude to an empirical analysis of 13 broadly comparable UK universities, as of 1992. Notable differences of localism' by region, by academic status and by broad subject area (medical v non-medical) are identified. A further model of the staff recruitment process suggests three components which might contribute to these, which are then evaluated through a mixture of data sources and inputs from university personnel departments. The final section of the paper compares the patterns of staff recruitment with evidence of research and teaching performance, highlighting potential cause for concern where localism is especially high and reviewing some short-term ways to reduce these.

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