Maria Conceição Rego (p), Andreia Dionísio, Isabel Joaquina Ramos, Maria Raquel Lucas, Maria da Saudade Baltazar

Higher education institutions (HEI) are located all over the Portuguese country, in different cities, which are the main anchors of surroundings territories. In this study, the theoretical framework is related with two main theories: the territorial effects of HEI and internal migrations of young people.
The research intends to analyse the existence of some relationship between the cities where HEI are located, HEI themselves and young people migration flows along the country. The research questions are the following: HEI dimension is related with city dimension and the capacity of attraction of both are proportional? HEI can change migration flows (in particular the flows of youngers) directed the cities where HEI are located?
In this research, we used data about i) the public network of HEI (universities and polytechnics), ii) Portuguese internal migrations by age group and iii) characterization of cities where HEI are located. The data are from Statics of Portugal (INE) and Ministry of Education. The data were analysed with descriptive and multivariate statistics as well as fuzzy set methods, which intends to verify the necessary and sufficient conditions of cities attractiveness in relation with young people migrations flows.
The main conclusions from the fuzzy set method application, which results are consistent, are the follows:
- Employability, mainly in services sector, good levels of purchase power and HEI dimension could be conditions for leverage the young people migration flows,
- The association between conditions of employability, purchase power and HEI dimension are necessary conditions for young people migration flows,
- Low levels of population density, as well as employability and purchase power are sufficient conditions for improving the balance of young people migration flows, which are negatives in almost cities where HEI are located.
The results obtained are consistent with others related with territorial attractiveness and shows that the locations of HEI doesn’t seem to influence the cities attractiveness.

Stefan Rehak (p), Rikard Eriksson

Universities contribute to regional development by accumulating human capital, supporting innovative entrepreneurship and upgrading technologies and serving local community. Several theoretical concepts such as engaged university, entrepreneurial university, or mode 2 universities tried to explore the mechanisms of their regional engagement. Perhaps the most traditional is the provision of education which is relevant for regional labour market needs. Despite the fact that universities would like to compete on the national or international students markets, there are arguments for making provision for more locally based higher education. The context for higher education provision is changing during last decades. There are impulses from international organizations, national governments and regions to enhance the relevance of the teaching function for regional needs.
Sweden ranks among the top countries that spend the most on higher education. In past decades the number of universities grew from 4 in 1950 to 55 in 2016. Nowadays, the university system in Sweden is rather diverse. Universities differ in their specialization, age, size, research intensity, ownership and type (college, university). Our main focus in this paper is to explore the relation between the structure of higher education and the ability of the region to retain graduates. In other words, we will analyse the migration decisions of university graduates. We use data from the unique database of all individuals from the whole Swedish economy. Our analysis is based on 42 438 individuals graduated from higher education in 2004. The results show that the chance that the graduate will stay in the region of graduation is higher for individuals who are older, married and female. On the other hand more years in higher education (higher level of human capital) and favourable family background (parents with university degree) drive the individuals to migrate from the higher education region. Non local students who migrated for the higher education from their domicile are often migrating again, however with the decreasing rate with regard the distance to higher education. The chance for staying in the higher education region is higher for individuals graduating from colleges and independent universities. Surprisingly, graduates from highly ranked universities tend to stay in the higher education region, which can be explained by the superior ability of these universities to influence the regional labour market.

Stefan Töpfer (p), Tina Haussen, Silke Uebelmesser

Well-integrated highly skilled immigrants are an important economic factor for regions confronted by demographic change and skilled-labor shortage. Destination language proficiency is a key ingredients for economic and social integration into the destination society. In this paper we analyze the determinants of international university students’ planned investment into learning the host country’s language.
For our empirical analysis, we have surveyed 453 international students at the time of their enrolment at a German University. Apart from information about students’ socio-economic background, the survey contains information about German language skills at arrival in Germany as well as plans for (further) learning of the German language. Additionally, we have inquired about the choice and application process, expectations related to living and studying in Germany, and plans for the future. Furthermore, students’ risk attitude and time preference have been elicited.
Our empirical analysis of language proficiency is based on the theoretical “E’s”-framework, especially on the points related to exposure to the host country’s language and economic incentives for learning the new language (Chiswick and Miller 1995, 2007).
Economic incentives for learning the new language are directly related to the human capital investment model (Lazear 1999). More precisely, the incentives are the larger, the larger the expected returns to this investment and the smaller the costs. As to expected returns, on the one hand, they should increase with expected duration in the destination which is why we control for students’ future intentions to stay in Germany and the degree of certainty about this choice. On the other hand, expected returns are determined by expected gains in earnings which we can capture by the earnings rate for different study fields obtained from official statistics.
Exposure to the destination language – here German – can further guide our choice of control variables. Exposure at origin is controlled for by students’ self-assessed language proficiency at arrival, more objective measures including linguistic distance. Exposure at destination is captured by (mandatory) enrolment in German language courses during studying and by social contacts, i.e. whether close friends are from the country of origin or destination.
Our results will provide important insights about determinants of language learning, i.e. the role played by investment incentives, the intention to stay, students’ risk aversion and time preference but also their previous exposure to that language. Deepening the understanding will help to derive policy recommendations about international students’ potential as future high-skilled labor in the region.

Theodore Metaxas (p), Marie Noelle Duquenne

The paper deals with the emigration of young researchers in Greece. The basic assumption of this research is that the economic crisis and the unstable political and economic environment encourage more and more young Greek scientists to look for new perspectives of personal development and welfare abroad. At the same time, some of them are considering that they can have a safe and successful mainly professional future without having to leave Greece.
More specifically, this paper examines the views and dilemma of young researchers in Greece as regards the possibility to migrate abroad during the current economic crisis that has affected the country in the last 5 years. The aim of this paper is to detect the profile of those young scientists who are willing to emigrate as well of those that, at the opposite, are not willing to emigrate abroad. The main question is to examine what are the most important reasons that could be conduct high skills new citizens to leave their country? The study is based on an empirical research conducted on a sample of 409 young scientists from various scientific specialties (human, polytechnic, medical school etc) coming from university and technological institutes of the region of Thessaly in Greece. It appears that there is no significant difference as regards gender factor while at the opposite, the family’s economic situation is obviously a discriminating parameter as well as the type of skills acquired by students during their university studies. It is also obvious that negative views concerning the political system are one of the main reasons for new scientists’ emigration.
For this reason the investigation was carried out through the application of a questionnaire examining alternative reasons for emigration or not and using a 1-7 points Liker scale. In order to evaluate the impact of various situations and reasons conducting new researchers to immigrate or not, logistic model shave been implemented.
The added value of such an empirical study is important for the future of the country as it highlights the young population’ perception as regards the future of the country, the main reasons that stimulate them for emigration as well as the problems arising in terms of political decisions and actions to tackle this phenomenon.