To counter Armenia's brain drain, academy elects “foreign members”

by Vincent Lima

Published: Friday May 29, 2009

Radik Martirosyan, president of Armenia's National Academy of Sciences. . Armenia TV

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Yerevan - Alina Khachatryan, host of the Hairenik-Spiurk (Homeland-Diaspora) program on Armenia TV, on May 24 asked Radik Martirosyan, the president of Armenia's National Academy of Sciences, how the academy was using diaspora support to help Armenia reach its declared goal of becoming a knowledge-based economy.

Mr. Martirosyan noted that early support for the academy helped the academy and its members simply survive. For example, Ara Abramyan, president of the Union of Armenians in Russia, would donate funds to provide heat to some of the academy's institutes. He also donated computer technology and supported the publication of books.

Now, Mr. Martirosyan said, Mr. Abramyan has established the Fund for the Development of Scholarship at the academy. The two men co-chair the fund's board of trustees. Donors include Gagik Tsarukian, a member of parliament who heads the Prosperous Armenia Party. One project of the fund is to award prizes for the best scholarly work of the previous year.

"Awards have gone to scholars whose work has appeared in the world's most respected journals and collections," Mr. Martirosyan said. He added that many of the winners were "representatives of the younger generation."

Speaking from Burbank, Calif., over a split screen, co-host Arayik Ghazarian noted that many young Armenians had moved permanently to places like Silicon Valley, where "their brains serve the progress of science and technology in the United States." He asked whether the National Academy of Sciences was doing anything "to draw these people to Armenia periodically – where perhaps one day they will see a future for themselves?"

Mr. Martirosyan said the academy had decided to elect prominent scholars who live abroad as foreign members of the academy, and in that way make them part of Armenia's scholarly community. In late November 2008, the academy elected 78 scholars from the Armenian diaspora, all at once, as foreign members. The scholars came from 16 different countries, though they included 14 members of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

The academy had set some conditions in advance of the election, Mr. Martirosyan said. The scholars had to agree "(1) that they would come once a year to Armenia, participate in our annual meeting, and present a scholarly report; (2) that they would be in contact with our local scholars and discuss areas of possible cooperation; (3) that they would help one young scholar from Armenia to go to their institution or another institution for further training; and finally, (4) that they would participate in our peer review process."