Effectively Managing Talent Mobility
Leveraging Canada’s Expertise and Experiences
Canada has been an active recruiter of high-skilled migrants for decades, while other countries have become leaders in innovation and growth. The number of countries competing for global talent, particularly for professionals in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics is growing, and even countries that once served almost exclusively as talent pools (e.g. China, India, Brazil) are now competing for talent. While some of these new competitors demonstrate how talent returns can trigger innovation and growth, Canada, with an unparalleled range of policy programs, is able to inform the recruitment and retention of talent worldwide.
Yet, even in Canada, globally a poster child of targeted talent recruitment, industries and communities are struggling to effectively utilize both local as well as global talent, and in recruiting and retaining talent for innovation and growth. Over the last years, other countries have developed their own recruitment and retention strategies. There is great value to learn and to benefit from their experience and expertise by promoting a global exchange of best practices and policy models.
The world is currently struggling with a shifting global order and new tensions. There is no solution yet on how to share the benefits of migration equally, and to avoid brain drain and other negative impacts of the race for talent. There is also a strong need to promote the interests and rights of global talents better through enhanced practices and policies, and with the help of an enhanced and global governance of talent mobility.
“Promoting innovation and development while mitigating negative outcomes requires effective global governance of talent mobility.”
Bringing together multiple stakeholders, ranging from industry to academia, and covering Canada, China and other innovation-strong countries, we have recently launched with the help of Canadian provincial and federal funding a unique global partnership which explores best practices of talent recruitment, retention and utilization — with the goal of promoting cooperation and effective governance of global talent mobility.
We are interested in understanding how global talent is currently recruited and retained and can be utilized more effectively for innovation and development, while mitigating negative impacts and outcomes such as brain drain. What are hurdles in talent recruitment, retention and utilization? What are limiting or advantageous factors of certain immigration pathways? Based on our assessment, we seek to identify solutions, and develop actionable policy and industry advice.
“Our partnered research is paving the way for enhanced cooperation and global governance of talent mobility.”
Our insights will be able to inform the ‘Alliance of Global Talent Organizations’ initiative proposed to the Paris Peace Forum by one of our main research partners, the Center for China and Globalization. Our partnered research is highly relevant to the challenge of increasing competition over global talent. It is paving the way for an enhanced global cooperation as well as governance of talent mobility that aim to be mutually beneficial while mitigating further brain drain and exploitation of global talent pools.
Views expressed in this publication are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Paris Peace Forum.
Martin Geiger, Associate Professor
Leads the ‘Mobility for Innovation’ project. This project is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Government of Ontario and other entities. Dr. Geiger holds the rank of an Associate Professor of ‘Politics of Migration and Mobility’ at Carleton University, Canada. He serves on the Steering Committee of the International Metropolis Network. His other affiliations include the Center for Science and Commercial Diplomacy (Denmark) and the Institute for Migration Research and Intercultural Studies (Germany).
