Nordic-Baltic Expats Forum - on the Shanghai Express

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Global distribution = global impact

The scientists, doctors, students and business people who register in the forum stem from a region that includes several world-class bioscience clusters like Medicon Valley and the Helsinki area, or fast growing biotech locations such as Poland or Estonia – all parts of ScanBalt BioRegion. These professionals have travelled and settled across the globe, focusing on southern Europe, the USA, Japan, and most recently on India and China. Together, they spread knowledge and know-how, foster wealth and employment, and constantly gather expertise and contacts from abroad for use ‘back home’. 

And their numbers are substantial. David Featherston, Science Liaison Officer at BioLogue, points out, “10% of over 9200 PhDs graduated from Danish universities since 1995 have moved abroad; in the life sciences, over 17% have gone. Taking the entire Top of Europe region together, this becomes thousands of life science experts, an invaluable resource to strengthen regional biomedical & biotech R&D, to catalyse global business opportunities which are just waiting to be explored.” 

The Nordic-Baltic Expats Forum (NBEF) is being established this spring and summer by ScanBalt and the Danish Pharma Consortium / BioLogue. Via the NBEF, life science experts and professionals will access a framework that fosters connectivity, networking and relationships among themselves and organisations both back home in the Top of Europe and abroad. By informing this community about home country, regional, and European research policies, career opportunities, and other avenues for collaboration, NBEF will ensure that these expatriates are recognised and engaged as an important resource, whether they remain abroad or choose to return. The global outreach will initially target expats in USA, China, Japan, India, Israel, Australia, Taiwan and Canada.

The Shanghai Express

One of the first organisations to support the NBEF initiative is the Trade Council of Denmark’s new Innovation Center Denmark in Shanghai. Claus Lønberg, Director of Innovation Center Denmark in Shanghai, says, “China wants to develop its competences within knowledge and innovation, to learn from Denmark through collaboration and Shanghai is one of their commercial super-centres. The Nordic-Baltic Expats Forum can act as an informal bridge between the two regions, not only attracting and engaging the brains that have travelled from the Top of Europe to China, but also to train the brains we meet abroad, borrowing them for internships, traineeships, PhDs, and postdocs. With Chinese life scientists learning the research and business culture in northern Europe, as well as Danes learning the Chinese system, strong partnerships, innovation, and global collaboration must be the only possible outcome.”

If you are interested please contact the NBEF project managers

Beata Grablevska
International Communication Manager at ScanBalt
Phone: +45 3532 4148
Email: bg@scanbalt.org

or

David Featherston
Science Liaison Officer at BioLogue / Danish Pharma Consortium Phone: +45 3532 6574
Email: david@biologue.org

Read more on www.scanbalt.org/nordexpat

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