Uk Brain Drain Is Going To Kill Any Recovery.

[Bloo Loo]

http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/mar08/6069

This is mainstream in prosthetics research now

yep. Military....government just slops money on them, and thats what you are up against.

Indeed, prosthetic money to emulate the real thing....we could be onto something..

[ParticleMan]

Indeed, prosthetic money to emulate the real thing....we could be onto something..

Perhaps everybody wants a prosthetic forehead on their real head?

(I was going to resist, but your post pushed me over the edge)

[Bloo Loo]

Perhaps everybody wants a prosthetic forehead on their real head?

(I was going to resist, but your post pushed me over the edge)

we could call it ...the Beeblebrox project.

[infinitejustice]

I am a mathematician and engineer. The project for which we are trying to recruit talent is an advanced arm prosthetic, very advanced.

Are you Skynet?

[Guest DissipatedYouthIsValuable]

http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/mar08/6069

This is mainstream in prosthetics research now

Growing flesh over a prosthesis? By the time you can do that, you're really not going to need any prosthetic components, you'll just be growing whole arms.

And the tricky bit will always be interfacing with nerves. Using electrical signals generated by muscles is ok, but limits signal resolution and complexity.

Sounds great fun though.

[Bloo Loo]

snip

Sounds great fun though.

yeah, like watching skin grow.....where do I sign?

[piece of paper]

yeah, like watching skin grow.....where do I sign?

Will it have pre-embedded tattoos for the UK market?

p-o-p

[ParticleMan]

Will it have pre-embedded tattoos for the UK market?

I'll go out on a limb and suggest it has the potential to render the DNA super-database obsolete overnight.

Maybe that's the OP's problem; he's being outbid by the Cosa Nostra.

[Methinkshe]

The brain drain will never stop until engineers and research scientists are better paid in this country.

I have personal examples within 3 generations of my family.

My OH (an engineer) was engaged in the 1960's with research on knee replacements. He continued as a professional engineer for 20 years or so but eventually, so as to earn a decent living, had to resort to self-employment in an engineering-related industry which required him to be more hands-on mechanic than engineer, although he was able to bring to bear his theoretical engineering knowledge.

My brother has a Mech Eng degree from Cambridge but has now been working and living in the USA for 15 years. His salary there is at least 50% higher than he could get here.

My daughter-in-law, until recently, was engaged in stem-cell research. She has a bio-med degree and MA. She has just left for better paid employment - locum in a path-lab - almost twice the salary.

As far as I can tell, one either has to be a mad-scientist-in-the-garret type, prepared to give up all for the sake of the research, or give up the research. It is impossible to earn a living and have a family on the current UK salaries awarded to professional engineers and scientific researchers - even when they have multiple degrees from the best universities.

Edited for typos.

Edited May 31, 2009 by Methinkshe

[Bob8]

The brain drain will never stop until engineers and research scientists are better paid in this country.

I have personal examples within 3 generations of my family.

My OH (an engineer) was engaged in the 1960's with research on knee replacements. He continued as a professional engineer for 20 years or so but eventually, so as to earn a decent living, had to resort to self-employment in an engineering-related industry which required him to be more hands-on mechanic than engineer, although he was able to bring to bear his theoretical engineering knowledge.

My brother has a Mech Eng degree from Cambridge but has now been working and living in the USA for 15 years. His salary there is at least 50% higher than he could get here.

My daughter-in-law was, until recently, was engaged in stem-sell research. She has a bio-med degree and MA. She has just left for better paid employment - locum in a path-lab - almost twice the salary.

As far as I can tell, one either has to be a mad-scientist-in-the-garret type, prepared to give up all for the sake of the research, or give up the research. It is impossible to earn a living and have a family on the current UK salaries awarded to professional engineers and scientific researchers - even when they have multiple degrees from the best universities.

Indeed. My own engineering company are looking to open up an office in the UK, purely to tap the large amount of highly skilled and cheap labour. Meanwhile, companies in the UK are complaining about there not being enough available labour (by which they mean, cheaper than they would pay their own kids for a summer job.

TBF the original poster is not an example of this, but there is a good reason for the brain drain.

[Methinkshe]

Post deleted.

Attempting to edit previous post for typos and managed to do a reply instead.

Sorry.

Edited May 31, 2009 by Methinkshe

[Guest BoomBoomCrash]

Growing flesh over a prosthesis? By the time you can do that, you're really not going to need any prosthetic components, you'll just be growing whole arms.

And the tricky bit will always be interfacing with nerves. Using electrical signals generated by muscles is ok, but limits signal resolution and complexity.

Sounds great fun though.

As explained earlier whilst regeneration is something which is going to be possible in the next decade or so, the nature of the medical setup required to monitor during growth phase etc means it won't be viable for many countries.

[Guest DissipatedYouthIsValuable]

As explained earlier whilst regeneration is something which is going to be possible in the next decade or so, the nature of the medical setup required to monitor during growth phase etc means it won't be viable for many countries.

You're certainly an optimist.

[piece of paper]

You're certainly an optimist.

Yeah, and you're just an old misery-guts! Are you saying the the $6M dollar man wasn't a documentary?

p-o-p

[Bloo Loo]

Yeah, and you're just an old misery-guts! Are you saying the the $6M dollar man wasn't a documentary?

p-o-p

by gunthars hammer, it WAS a documentary.

[Guest Skinty]

The upshot being it seems unlikely we will be able to start-up in the UK as the people with the requsite skills are leaving in droves.

Where are they going? I think a lot of us on here would seriously like to join them.

[Potwalloper]

Will you control it with an ARM processor?

[50%deposit]

Your marketing your job vacancy wrong.

you need to advertise it something along the lines of:

Wanted, small team of neurologissticwhatits to engineer secret cyborb death bots to take over the world. Pay: excellent. Must have own secret hidden laboratory and bad guy costume. Interest in zombies optional but an advantage.... just in case.

Edited May 31, 2009 by 50%deposit

[Neil B]

The last couple of months I have been trying to source some talented individuals covering a broad spectrum of disciplines for a project I and my business partners are working on. As 4 of the 6 people involved in this venture are based in the UK we decided that basing operations here would be our best bet. All we've had is fresh faced graduates who don't have the necessary experience to be of much benefit to the project. It seems anyone with marketable experience in the areas of interest to us has decamped to fairer shores. The upshot being it seems unlikely we will be able to start-up in the UK as the people with the requsite skills are leaving in droves.

I'm one of those project workers (PM/BA/Engineer) that decamped. I think the bigger problem is a lack of skills rather than a brain drain. There is a 20 year gap in the UK with young people studying useless subjects just so that they can have a degree. The number of students studying IT, Engineering or Mathematics in Universities is apauling. The UK has become one of the lowest, if not lowest skilled countries in Europe if not the world.

[MrPin]

I'm one of those project workers (PM/BA/Engineer) that decamped. I think the bigger problem is a lack of skills rather than a brain drain. There is a 20 year gap in the UK with young people studying useless subjects just so that they can have a degree. The number of students studying IT, Engineering or Mathematics in Universities is apauling. The UK has become one of the lowest, if not lowest skilled countries in Europe if not the world.

When you want to recruit, there aren't any candidates! When you need a job yourself, there aren't any jobs!

And yes I'm seriously thinking about working abroad now!

[50%deposit]

my brain is fecked

[laurejon]

I'm one of those project workers (PM/BA/Engineer) that decamped. I think the bigger problem is a lack of skills rather than a brain drain. There is a 20 year gap in the UK with young people studying useless subjects just so that they can have a degree. The number of students studying IT, Engineering or Mathematics in Universities is apauling. The UK has become one of the lowest, if not lowest skilled countries in Europe if not the world.

I think you have hit the nail on the head, and it will only get worse as time goes by.

Graduates today are ill prepared for the real world of work, and not that most thinking jobs are offshored its hard to see how Graduates could possibly ever develop further than making the tea and tapping a keyboard to chat to their mates on messenger.

The links have been broken, gone are the days whereby you started at the bottom and worked your way up learning life skills as well as business skills and technical skills.

Years a go an IT Grad would be an office boy, then do some sysadmin work, then take on more and more responsibilities and eventually some of them would be in development, or out in the field designing and selling solutions. The link and the stages to get to it have been broken with offshoring, and now UK companies are finding themselves unable to get the staff.

The offshoring fiasco is finally backfiring on the Corporates. Niche companies with a handfull of staff will be the ones making the real moves forward over the next decade.

[Cogs]

I'm one of those project workers (PM/BA/Engineer) that decamped. I think the bigger problem is a lack of skills rather than a brain drain. There is a 20 year gap in the UK with young people studying useless subjects just so that they can have a degree. The number of students studying IT, Engineering or Mathematics in Universities is apauling. The UK has become one of the lowest, if not lowest skilled countries in Europe if not the world.

Probably far too many studying "IT" but still. I don't agree anyhow, you are saying chicken but I blame the egg.

We do actually produce more science and engineering graduates than most competitor economies proportionally (the far east is anomalous frankly) despite underfunding our higher education system below (GDP terms) Hungary and Mexico. The problem is there aren't the jobs and there isn't the respect or pay. Give it five years and your physics guy is working for a bank and the chemist is spending his days wrangling Excel macros at best. He is probably a salesman or an estate agent or something in reality. Even the IT bloke has had enough and instead of spending his time doing innovative work is off maintaining a database of barcodes and counting the hours until his heart stops beating.

The message has been clear for the last 30 years: Join the Spiv class or suffer. Middleman or bust.

[Kazuya]

my brain is fecked

Edited June 1, 2009 by Eiji

[talksalot81]

Why is everyone confusing 'skills' with 'experience'.

There is no shortage of skills. You can say all you like about the level of education but, these days, we are tossing out more skilled people than ever before. The technical skills to do the OPs job are there. The problem is that those skills are held by younger people who simply cannot have the experience.

UK Employers want both skills and experience but very few seem willing to train to give the latter. The fact that this sort of discussion is arising is proof that this short term approach is causing problems.