Nature published my letter to editor in November 2017. Please read. It is about employment opportunities of PhDs in foreign countries particularly Asia. I wrote this in response to an editorial lamenting lack of jobs for fresh PhDs in academics in own country.
PhD recipients who are unable to secure an academic post in their home country (Nature 550, 429; 2017) should consider postdoctoral, teaching and research jobs in universities abroad, where their skills are in high demand.
Universities in the Middle East, China and southeast Asia are recruiting research talent from outside those regions. Many offer perks such as tax-free salaries, research grants and housing. To promote local research, some countries also host campuses of British, US and Australian universities.
For example, several US universities have campuses in the Qatari capital Doha (Carnegie Mellon, Texas A&M and Northwestern); in the United Arab Emirates (New York University); in China (Duke University); and in Singapore (Yale University). China hosts the Technion Israel Institute of Technology in Guangdong province, as well as some UK institutions (the universities of Edinburgh and Nottingham, for example). The University of Nottingham also has a campus in Malaysia, as do two Australian institutions (Swinburne and Monash universities).
In return, new postdocs who move to work in these countries will broaden their outlook in a different and hospitable culture.
doi: 10.1038/d41586-017-07235-3
