Andrei V. Korobkov Professor, Department of Political Science Middle Tennessee State University Box 29, 1301 East Main Street Murfreesboro, TN 37132 USA E-mail: korobkov@mtsu.edu Russian brain drain remains one of the most politicized and hotly debated aspects of the post-Soviet migration. Meanwhile, the real scale of intellectual migration is much smaller than is usually expected, even though in some regions and particular fields of Basic Sciences, including Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, and Biology, and a limited number of research centers, brain drain has indeed acquired a magnitude threatening the existence of the established academic schools. At the same time, visible are huge disparities in terms of the ability of specialists from different branches of science to find adequate jobs abroad. Many academic subfields, including Humanities and Social Sciences, and most of the Russian regions show extremely low levels of intellectual migration and engagement in the international academic exchanges. The result is the practical exclusion of many academic fields and the majority of the Russian regions from the international academic system. The major issues under consideration include the durability of the intellectual migration flow, its structural characteristics and territorial orientation. Of special interest are the recent changes in the Russian migration policy, including attempts by the RF leadership to encourage the return of the Russian academics. The author concludes that a more effective policy could be based on various forms of cooperation with the Russian academics abroad, whether with or without their permanent relocation to the country. Hence the goal of the Russian policy should be not limiting the intellectual migration, but rather capitalizing on such its positive aspects as the establishment of long term international academic contacts and the formation of the Russian elite diasporas abroad, actively engaged in cooperation with the RF academic institutions.
