IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - Winter 2014 - 34

We find also that the movement from Europe to the
U.S. (20.1%) heavily outnumbers the opposite movement (5.9%). Only about half of the researchers working in the U.S. are native-born (51%). For the rest of
the world the vast majority of researchers are nativeborn citizens (see Fig. 1).
We also conducted a more detailed investigation,
looking at the specific current institutional affiliations
of HC engineers. We found that out of the top twenty
institutions in engineering, ranked from the point of
view of HCRs, sixteen are in the U.S., while only
two are in Europe (CERN and EPFL), and two are
in Canada (University of Waterloo and University of
Toronto). No Asian Institution appears in the top 20
list, despite their strong tradition in engineering.
Also, no U.K. university appears in the top 20
engineering list with respect to HCRs. This finding
supports the concerns voiced by industry in the U.K.
about that country's engineering programs.
There are 6 Institutions in California in the top 20
list, five of which belong to the University of California
system. This finding needs further examination in order
to see if there is a connection to the existence of the
Silicon Valley in California. Stanford and UC Berkeley,
in addition to a high number of HCRs in engineering,
show a very high overall number of HCRs. This confirms the diversity of these two institutions in nurturing top researchers across scientific disciplines. For the
other institutions appearing in the list, it is apparent that
their main emphasis is in engineering.

OPINION

Highly Cited U.S. Engineers
Were Nurtured Elsewhere
The findings in this article indicate that a significant
proportion of highly cited engineers working in the
U.S. were scientifically "nurtured" elsewhere.
While further research is needed in order to continue advancing the understanding of the movement
of scientists, this study can be seen as a first step
towards a better understanding of the mechanisms
behind the deemed U.S. global superiority in science
and in higher education.

Author Information
The authors are affiliated with the Department of Statistics, Athens University of Economics and Business, 76
Patision St, 10434 Athens, Greece. Email: jpan@aueb.gr.

Reference

[1] J. Panaretos and C. Malesios, "Influential mathematicians: Birth,
education and affiliation," Notices Amer. Math. Soc., vol. 59, no. 2,
pp. 274-286, Feb. 2012.

(continued from page 11)

temporal clearing itself in which everything and
everyone presences and absences. Each of us only
partakes of the time-clearing (quivering, resonant,
mindful soul) for as long as we're alive, each in his
or her own individual way. This partaking is the deepest, most primitive "we" (first person plural) we share.
All further, more or less tenuous we's presuppose this
first, primitive we-ness of sharing the time-clearing.
A further inversion, long preceding the Modern Age:
the soul does not depart the body when I die, but rather,
my body leaves the time-clearing (mindful soul).
34

Observing the percentages of native and non-native
HCRs in each one of the top institutions, we found that
for the majority of the U.S. institutions, their HCRs
originate from countries outside the United States. For
instance, at Stanford, six out of eleven HCRs come
from countries outside the U.S., and at M.I.T., four
out of nine. There are also more extreme cases. For
instance at the University of California Los Angeles,
all HCRs (four) were born outside the U.S.

Author Information
Dr. Michael Eldred is an Australian philosopher,
mathematician and translator currently living in Cologne, Germany. He is the author of several books,
including Social Ontology: Recasting Political
Philosophy Through a Phenomenology of Whoness
(2008), The Digital Cast of Being: Metaphysics,
Mathematics, Cartesianism, Cybernetics, Capitalism, Communication (2009), and co-author of Digital Whoness: Identity, Privacy and Freedom in the
Cyberworld (2013).
IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

WINTER 2014

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