Exporting Talent: VES Project and the STEM emigration from Venezuela

In the 21st century, the intellectual capital and social capital are far more important for development than financial or monetary capital. Yet, within the past 30 years, and with trends increasingly accelerating in the last fifteen years, a small South American country like Venezuela has “exported” roughly 1.5 million people (about 5% of its total population). The majority of those who have chosen to leave the country for new lands are highly educated individuals. Thus, we can say that Venezuela is a country undergoing a sort of intellectual undercapitalization process – a national intellectual impoverishment.Venezuelan emigration is a fairly recent phenomenon. The Venezuelan Community Abroad Project is a research initiative created to evaluate this new phenomenon. This project is being carried out by the Central University of Venezuela, the Observatory Hannah Arendt, and two French entities: the Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme and the École de Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales. Together, they have estimated the number of Venezuelan emigrants in 1.5 million. So far, using social media networks and other resources, they have been able to certify a total of 883,000 Venezuelan emigrants in 22 countries. More…