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More on the German Academic “Brain Drain”

Brian Leiter

Kai Wehmeier (Philosophy, UC Irvine) writes:

As a German expat of sorts myself, I was very interested to read the remarks by Volker Halbach and Hannes Leitgeb on your blog. I’m not really familiar with the Austrian philosophical scene, but Volker is certainly right about Germany — at least insofar as logicians are concerned. I conjecture that the majority of philosophically-minded logicians of my generation have left the country: Volker Halbach for Oxford, Reinhard Kahle for Coimbra/Portugal, Benedikt Loewe and Wolfram Hinzen for Amsterdam, I myself for Irvine, to mention those who immediately come to mind. (The situation seems to be at least as bad for German mathematical logicians, whose ties to philosophy are, however, generally less tight in Germany than in the Anglo-Saxon world.) I am unsure, however, whether Hannes’ claim (that German-speaking philosophers have recently tended to prefer the UK over the US) is really borne out by the rather small sample; and moreover, even if this is the case, there would seem to be some obvious reasons for a bias towards the UK — proximity to the fatherland (and hence the extended family) certainly being a major factor — that have nothing to do with academic or professional considerations.

I’ve opened comments, and invite other philosophers (faculty and students) with pertinent experience and evidence to weigh in.  No anonymous postings, of course.

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14 responses to “More on the German Academic “Brain Drain””

  1. Hannes Leitgeb

    Kai is certainly right about what he calls a "rather small sample" (of German-speaking philosophers who turned to the UK): in fact, I thought of Stephan Hartmann (LSE), Volker Halbach (Oxford), and myself. As far as Austria is concerned, my colleague Clemens Sedmak, who works on epistemology and religious studies, is going to move from Salzburg to London. Proximity to the fatherland is of course an important issue.

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  2. Kai

    All of the examples mentioned so far concern scholars who received (most of) their graduate education in Germany or Austria, and moved to the Anglo-Saxon world only after their Ph.D. There are, of course, also those who got brain-drained at an earlier stage, i.e. those who obtained their graduate degrees in the US (or the UK) and didn't return. Richard Zach (Ph.D. from Berkeley, now associate professor at Calgary), Erich Reck (Ph.D. from U of Chicago, now associate professor at UC Riverside), and Thomas Hofweber (Ph.D. from Stanford, now assistant professor at UNC/Chapel Hill) come to mind. It would be interesting to know how many German/Austrian philosophy graduate students there are in the US and the UK at this time, and whether they intend to return to the fatherland (and how likely they think it is for them to get a job back home).

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  3. Thomas Hofweber

    I am actually a little surprised how little brain drain there is from Germany. Compare the German to the English situation in the following way: in England it happens all the time that a senior philosopher who has a nice, permanent job at some good university moves to the US, for good. I can't think of a single case when this happened with a senior German philosopher, although there must be someone. The senior ranks of the German philosophy departments don't get depleted in that way. One could have a little uncharitable interpretation of this situation, or it might be that the older generation of philosophers just don't like to leave Germany. But I think something like this even applies to the younger philosophers. I am always a little amazed at how few come to the US to go to grad school. Having been a student both in Germany (at one of the better German departments) and in the US (at one of the better US departments) it is clear to me that it is substantially better to be a student here in the US than in Germany, considering only how much you will learn and how well you will develop as a philosopher. In addition, if one gets accepted one gets a scholarship, so money can't be the issue. So, given that there are many many German philosophy students in Germany, why don't the good US departments get 50 or 100 applications a year from Germans? I think the explanation might at least in part be that basically no one who has gone has ever come back. I can now only think of Eckhart Förster, who came back briefly after many years in the US and England, but I guess there must be others, but it can't be too many, I would have heard about them. (I know of some who went back to Germany into temporary positions, to then moved away again….) So, it looks like that once you go your gone for good, and that can make it tough for someone who otherwise thinks that they really would be better off to study with Field, or Yablo, or Gibbard, or someone else, here in the US. But maybe there are other reasons, like the thought that it is a waste of time and money to even apply, since its unlikely you get in coming from the University of Erlangen, or the like. I'm not sure what really explains this. But if you think about it, there really aren't that many German philosophers here in the US.

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  4. Volker Halbach

    Thomas wrote: "I am always a little amazed at how few [Germans] come to the US to go to grad school." There is an easy explanation: they are all in Oxford. I don't have exact numbers, but there are really many German graduate students here (and I had one student in my lectures from Erlangen, Thomas). This is even more amazing because the overall number of graduates in Germany is very low. Some departments have a ratio <1 of graduates to teaching positions (per year).

    Thomas was also wondering why so few senior German philosophers leave the country. There are several reasons. First, most senior German philosophers haven't published in English. Second, by leaving Germany a German C3- or C4-professor would loose his pension rights.

    Thomas mentioned that few of the Germans who left Germany return again. And those few like Eckhart Förster and Manfred Kühn, who have both come from the US, left Germany again, after having held prestigious positions in Germany for a couple of years.

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  5. Thomas Hofweber

    It is very nice to hear that there are so many Germans at Oxford. I didn't know that, and in general I know the English scene much less well than the situation in the US. To clarify, though, we are talking about people who do the whole Ph.D. / D.Phil program, not simply visiting for a year or a semester. There are many Germans who spend a year at some program or other, but at least in the US there are few who do the whole Ph.D. program. At Stanford there where German visitors almost every year, often several at the same time, but I can only think of 4 who did the Ph.D. program, over many years. The numbers are about the same at other departments I know of. I can think of 4 at Princeton, 2 at Berkeley, 1 at Michigan, 2 at MIT, and so on. These are either Germans or Austrians who did the whole program. Again, these are just the people I know of, but the real numbers can't be that far off. And these numbers strike me as low. And in particular, the number of German/Austrian applicants to the Ph.D. programs (which I know only from departments I have been affiliated with: Stanford, Michigan, UNC) strike me as low.

    So, Volker, could you clarify the situation in England or Oxford? How many Germans or Austrians, roughly, do the D.Phil, and do they stay in England, go back to Germany/Austria, or go somewhere else? It would be very interesting if indeed the numbers are substantially different in England, and to hear what explains that difference.

    BTW: I don't mean to belittle the University of Erlangen. My point was simply that those who study at a smaller German university might think that there is no point in applying to one of the main English or US Ph.D. programs since these programs don't accept people who did not come from fancy and expensive universities. And their thinking this would explain, in part, why so few apply to these programs. Even though there is a little truth to this thought, it mostly is not true, and so I think this should not stop them from applying. And apparently it worked out nicely for one of Volker's students.

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  6. Volker Halbach

    I was talking about graduate students who actually pursue a degree in Oxford. There are about 10 German graduate students (8 DPhil and 2 BPhil) here; that is about 10% of all graduate students. This number does not include Austrians and Swiss.

    I talked to some of them and those I talked to do not plan to return to Germany. The main reason is that the job situation in Germany is so bad, but they also told me that they do not expect to get a position as Juniorprofessors or something similar because they think that those positions are reserved for people who have done their PhD in Germany.

    It would be interesting to know how the number of grad students in Oxford compares to, say, the number of grad students at a bigger German department like Munich. The numbers from Germany would have to be treated with care because many people are enrolled as PhD students for many years without actually working on their disseration.

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  7. Eric Schliesser

    Despite my last name, I am Dutch not German. But I wanted to add some further evidence to Thomas Hofweber's comments. I know of one German PhD student at the University of Chicago; not surprising, perhaps, he works on Kant. During the last ten years, Chicago has had a number of visiting students from Germany who were interested in German Idealism (and/or Wittgenstein). Moreover, a number of the UofC graduate students (and professors!), who specialize in Leibniz or German Idealism, have studied in Germany at some point in the same period. In history and philosophy of science at the University of Chicago(now more seperate from philosophy than in the past) I know of at least one more German graduate student; historically HPS has excellent connections with the Max Planck Institute. So in certain areas of study there is, I think, a lively exchange of people and ideas between Chicago and Germany. (I suspect one could find same pattern at Pitt.)
    On a different note: it is very difficult to return to mainland European Universities at the junior level if one has an American graduate degree. There are many (often perverse) incentives for Continental universities to hire from within at junior level, especially in current context of scarcity of jobs in philosophy. Many of these incentives are well known, so a decision to leave Germany, Austria, and (despite its more international outlook) the Netherlands before one has obtained a doctorate often means a no-return strategy in the short/medium-run.
    Finally, from afar it looks like a pan-European intellectual environment is being created even among philosophers working in U.K.(if the daily list-serv updates about speakers at conferences on the Continent at UK is any indication.) I suspect proximity, EU subsidies, and low European airfares are encouraging this trend.

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  8. Kai

    This has turned out to be a very interesting discussion. Let me add a possible (partial) explanation for the relative scarcity of German speaking philosophy graduate students at some US universities. Thomas is of course right in pointing out that, as a general rule, those who are accepted as graduate students receive financial aid offers as well, usually covering something like tuition and cost-of-living expenses. The problem in the University of California system is that non-resident tuition is outrageously higher than resident tuition, so that non-residents who are offered tuition waivers cost the school/department much more than residents. Not much of a problem for US citizens, who can reclassify as California residents after a year, but desastrous for foreigners. For a department like ours (and BTW Brian, mine is Logic & Philosophy of Science, not Philosophy) this means that we'd have to trade one foreign admit for two or three domestic admits, which raises the bar significantly for foreign applicants.

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  9. Thomas Hofweber

    Volker's numbers are fascinating. How does Oxford do it? Just consider this: there are now probably more German grad students in Oxford than in the top 10, or maybe even top 20, US philosophy departments taken together. Why does Oxford attract so many more? I am not sure proximity and airfare can explain this. Any ideas?

    On Kai's comments: I see that some departments have incentives to accept Americans, but I know that for many that is not so. There the money is there to accept a certain number a year, with funding for 5 years, no matter what country they come from. In particular for wealthy private universities, nationality or residence status should be no issue. But one thing that is an issue, and makes it harder for Germans and the like, is letters. Not only are potential letter writers from Germany not as well known or trusted as ones that come from the usual departments, I know from reading many letters from Germany that letter writers are just not doing that good a job at it. I have seen people stress all the wrong things, coming close to Grice's handwriting example, while having the best intentions. Maybe the letter writing culture is quite different in Germany than it is in the US, and what works in Germany just doesn't work here, and the other way round as well.

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  10. Brian Leiter

    Another small data point: Hans Kamp spents years in the US and England (Cornell, UCL, Texas) before moving to Stuttgart, where he has chosen to remain even when, recently, UCLA tried to recruit him. And I think it was Wolfgang Spohn (at Konstanz?) who told me a major reason for turning down an offer from UC San Diego in the US was precisely the pension issue, noted earlier.

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  11. Christoph Schmidt-Petri

    I am not sure anyone non-German listens to us (except for Brian himself and Eric), but it is pretty clear that by going abroad for a long long time – and that is what doing a PhD in the USA certainly means – one loses practically every contact one might ever have had in Germany. And given the number of *junior* jobs that are actually advertised openly and not distributed via contacts, it is not surprising that few people manage to come back, even if they wanted. (I suspect many want, but probably for personal rather than academic reasons). My impression is that junior hiring methods in Germany are simply terrible, terrible, terrible. And that is the real problem. One can't even properly apply for jobs in Germany for heaven's sake! (That is, at a level lower than Full Professor – check the Hamburg 'Jobs in der Philosophie' website to get an idea). It is not surprising that people can't stay then, is it. There is strong institutional inertia against changing this, I think, since junior positions are assigned to, and hence distributed by, Full Professors here, and not to/by Departments. Of course they would hire people they know and like… (That would certainly go very far in explaining why so few philosophers *from* the US or UK come *to* Germany, for a job, not some temporary research grant. After all, Germany is a nice place to live).
    Point: those who actually want an academic career simply get a much higher degree of certainty of being able to have one by going to the UK/US *as early as possible.*

    Thomas: Oxford has, I think, the best graduate programm in philosophy 'close to Germany' with their clever BPhil/DPhil system (two years of coursework – BPhil; + thesis – DPhil). My impression is that many people come for the BPhil (with the valuable option of 'having done graduate work at Oxford' and moving on elsewhere or back to Germany) but then stay on since further burdens are lower and they realise the philosophers there are not that bad ; ) Of course, for anyone who is not aware of it: there is no such thing as a graduate 'programme' in philosophy in Germany to start with and the undergraduate degrees are way less systematically organised than in the UK, for instance. Thus one should also consider how many of the Germans at Oxford actually had studied in Germany before, and not in the UK, to assess actual brain 'drain' at the graduate level. It is clear that chances of getting into Oxford are also higher if you come from similar institutions. Volker? The brain drain at the undergraduate level is even more remarkable, probably.

    Sorry, probably I should have begun the post with: Don't get me started!

    I was at LSE and three Germans got PhDs there recently, several are still enrolled. LSE, like Oxbridge, gives you high non-philosophy credibility too, which might make studying there more attractive than, say, at Sheffield, NYU or Rutgers (sorry, but which employer even *knows* Rutgers in Germany, let alone Chapel Hill or Ann Arbor??? That PhD is not going to get you anywhere.) I think only I tried to come 'back' to Germany, but since I fitted a job that was advertised it worked (I really count myself extremely lucky), the others went to Canada and Sweden. I am not counting at all on being able to stay in Germany.

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  12. Volker Halbach

    Christoph, there seems to be a recent change in the number of undergraduate applicants from Germany at Oxford. I was told that the number has gone up significantly; unfortunately I don't have any figures.

    Christoph said already something about the chances of getting hired in Germany at junior level from abroad. He is right; these jobs are usually not even advertised. Sometimes they have to be advertised for legal reasons, but usually the house candidate turns out to be the strongest applicant.

    It is not much better at the senior level. In particular, I don't think that a PhD from Princeton will you qualify for a professorship in Germany. For instance, you don't have a habilitation and an assistant professorship is usually not taken as a qualification for a German professorship. Moreover in order to get a job in the US or the UK you'll try to get some decent papers published in good journals. German job committees, however, are usually interested in the pure number of articles and the variety of topics (in particular historical topics), and they put more emphasis on books. Also it is unlikely that you will find the time to publish in German while you are in the US, which makes it even less likely that you can get a job in Germany.

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  13. kimble Perry

    I heard Honderich state his amazement about a rift between continental and Anglo Saxon philosophy still continuing. The exchange between Germany and German speaking countries to England and The States can only benefit the host countries. I am sure that the German unis are have other intellectuals in the making to fill in the gaps left.

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  14. Michael Blome-Tillmann

    The statistics about German and Austrian graduates at the Philosophy Faculty in Oxford are even more impressive than Volker thought. By taking a brief look at the website I counted the following for the academic year 2005-6 (I should mention that I'm a graduate at Oxford myself and so know that these figures aren't exaggerated):

    BPhil: 9 Germans
    DPhil: 5 Germans, 2 Austrians

    That adds up to 16 graduates (not counting visiting students!). Considering that Oxford has currently about 104 graduates, an amazing 15% of the Oxford philosophy graduate community is from Germany/Austria.

    Remarkable, I think.

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