How to make post-industrial cities more attractive for graduated students and prevent brain drain

UNIC Oulu in collaboration with UNIC RUB organised a panel discussion on the theme: How to make post-industrial cities more attractive for graduated students and prevent brain drain. The aim of this event was to address the topic of attractiveness of post-industrial cities and discuss strategies for preventing the brain drain phenomena. The event offered the opportunity to learn best practices from each other and brought a diverse panel of experts from Bochum and Oulu.

Panel discussion agenda:

Part I. Opening the Panel Discussion

• Introduction about UNIC and UNIC CityLabs
• Defining the topic of the panel discussion and sharing some facts about the brain drain phenomenon.
• Introducing the panelists:
  1. Lisa Methling, consultant for Political Networking and International Affairs - City of Bochum, shared about the “Bochum Strategy” as a concept of preventing the brain drain phenomena, with a focus on knowledge-based company recruitment.
  2. Fabian Hoff, Supporting Start-ups at Bochum Economic Development, shared about the “Bochum Strategy” as a concept of preventing the brain drain phenomena, with a focus on the start-up scene   
  3. Helena Louhela, PhD and a post-doctoral researcher at the Gender Studies, University of Oulu, shared about Factors that can further and prevent the brain drain from the perspective of Academic Mobility.
  4. Mari Rautiainen, Head of Talent team in BusinessOulu, shared about the city of Oulu's strategy in preventing the brain drain phenomena and making the city more attractive to graduated students.

Part II. Moderator curated questions for Panelists

A set of questions were prepared beforehand based on the panelists’ expertise. The questions were used to guide the conversation and divided into three categories:

• Brain drain questions
• Prevention strategies questions
• Attractiveness of postindustrial cities questions

Part III. Audience Q&A

The audience had the opportunity to post their questions in the Zoom chat option. The questions/ comments were addressed organically throughout the discussion and the last 20 min of the event were used specifically for audience Q&A.

Part IV. Summary

The moderator summarized the event by emphasizing several key takeways, a call to action, and promoting the upcoming CityLabs event.