Event：International Symposium（Open to the Public） Global Mobility of Students and Highly Skilled Individuals: New Dynamism in and Beyond Asia

 

 

International student mobility, which temporarily stagnated during the COVID-19 pandemic, is now expanding at a pace that exceeds pre-pandemic levels. While the global number of international students continues to grow, this aggregate trend conceals profound shifts and emerging asymmetries in cross-border mobility. Rising geopolitical tensions and increasingly restrictive immigration policies have led to stagnation or even reversal of mobility in some traditional destination countries, calling into question long-standing assumptions about global talent circulation. Since the early 2000s, particularly within OECD-led discourse, highly skilled mobility has been framed as a mutually beneficial process in which talent circulates across national borders, contributing to knowledge diffusion and technological innovation. As global mobility enters a period of structural reconfiguration, it is increasingly unclear whether these assumptions adequately capture new dynamics emerging beyond the Global North.

This international research forum takes Asia as a critical vantage point from which to reassess global student and highly skilled mobility. Focusing on international students and highly skilled individuals whose trajectories extend beyond education, the forum examines how patterns of mobility are being reshaped across Asia amid changing geopolitical, economic, and policy environments. Bringing together scholars specializing in mobility research on China, India, South Korea, and Japan, the forum explores structural transformations in international mobility, their underlying drivers, and implications for future talent flows. By foregrounding Asia not merely as a destination or source region but as an agenda-setting actor, the forum seeks to advance a more inclusive and dynamic understanding of international student and highly skilled mobility.

Date/Time: 1 March 2026 (Sun), 14:00 JST-
Venue: Hitotsubashi Hall, Special Meeting Rooms 101-103
Zoom Registration: https://forms.gle/Wvy1hRW9zNij9gB1A

 

＜Program＞

Introduction: Yukari Matsuzuka (Hitotsubashi University)

Speaker 1: Wenqin Shen & Po Yang (Peking University)
Title: The Changing Landscape of Chinese High Skilled Mobility

Speaker 2: Kishore M. Joshi (Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University)
Title: Global Mobility Trends of Indian Students and Skilled Workers: Emerging Patterns and Shifting Dynamics.

Speaker 3: Terri Kim (Hanyang University)
Title: High-skilled Global Mobility into and from Korea: A Comparative Perspective

Speaker 4: Shuoyang Meng (Hitotsubashi University)
Title: Has Japan Become a More Attractive Destination for International Doctoral Talent?

Discussants:
Akiyoshi Yonezawa (Tohoku University)
Yuriko Sato (Japan Student Services Organization)

* This event is sponsored by Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (A) (25H00565), titled “High-Skilled Global Mobility: Patterns, Determinants and Economic Impacts of PhD Holders Career Pathways”, and the Mori Arinori Institute for Higher Education and Global Mobility at Hitotsubashi University.