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To obtain "1.2 million additional research personnel" necessary to "irrigate" the science-based industries, EU stresses, it is not sufficient to increase the investment in research alone. The motivation behind several brain drain policies implemented in Europe in recent years is to stop the European brain drain and reverse it: "Europeans who have moved abroad would love to come home". This paper reviews principal 'Brain Drain Competition' policies either suggested in literature or implemented in Europe. The key strategies and mechanisms found are: making the academic system more open and flexible; improving the regulatory conditions, particularly on immigration; adapting income situations to market forces; providing tax reductions, specifically for researchers and knowledge workers; making international marketing more active, etc. Finally, the paper analyzes the effects of these policies on the brain drain in Europe by giving examples of countries that have effectively reversed brain drain and attracted foreign researchers. The case of Italy as "a country that supplies talent to Europe and the Americas" is also examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Mediterranean countries, with their specific sociocultural identities, are facing a process of huge and wider integration due to immigration of laborers from other countries. Among the integration mechanisms, migration, especially of young people, represents a crucial tool for changing the Euro-Mediterranean societies and a means of transferring and mobilizing resources across national boundaries. From the sending countries' perspective, migration experience in Europe, especially for young people that face problems of unemployment and difficulties in acquiring competences and skills at home, offers a unique opportunity of training, of knowledge transfer and brain circulation. Migration in Europe becomes a development tool when financial and social remittances (namely ideas, practices, identities) sent back home by the migrants have significant effect in transforming economies, lives and values of recipient countries. For the host countries temporary migrants can be beneficial to solve market imbalances and to provide examples of different ways of conducting business activities. The paper aims at providing an overview of actual flows of young people across the Mediterranean with particular relevance to human capital (skills and abilities) and entrepreneurial functions. Some evidence will be drawn from returnees of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries as they provide interesting examples of these dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]