The Experience of European Researchers in China: A Comparative Capital Advantage Perspective

This paper unfolds a “black box” concerning European researchers working in China, an emerging phenomenon as an outcome of European and Chinese international research collaboration. China’s rapid economic growth has created plentiful career opportunities in research and innovation, attracting mainly returning Chinese but also non-Chinese researchers. While emerging research has brought attention to the individual experiences of the latter group, this work has been hampered by a lack of conceptual frameworks, as well as empirical knowledge regarding these migrants’ motivations, job satisfaction, and career prospects. This article attempts to bridge this research gap by focusing on European researchers working in Chinese universities. It develops a novel analytical framework that integrates insights from the push–pull framework and Bourdieu’s conceptualization of capital and applies this framework in a qualitative investigation of China-based European researchers. This analysis shows, first, that significant capital gains exist for natural scientists, as opposed to social scientists, in China, as the former operates in a more internationalized, better-funded, and less politically controlled environment. Second, it demonstrates that European researchers’ migration journeys in China remain predominantly temporary, as their initial advantages tend to fade away over time. Finally, this article finds that European researchers’ reasons for leaving China are connected to challenges beyond the workplace, yet their stay in China becomes an important step in increasing their competitiveness in the global academic labor market.