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6. The role of networks and connections in shaping migration processes and effects INTRODUCTION This chapter considers the role that networks and connections play in scientific migration. Existing literature tends to polarize the debate into two distinct positions. The first stance suggests that networks make migrants, lubricating and channelling migratory outflows with a multiplier effect. The second stance – found in a growing body of literature with a focus predominantly on developing countries – identifies the potential that scientific diaspora present as critical compensatory mechanisms, enabling sending regions to benefit from the enriched human capital of their expatriates through forms of ‘disembodied’ knowledge transfer. This chapter explores the relationship between networking and migration/knowledge transfer processes. It considers the relevance of the concept of diaspora in the context of scientific communities, the quality and function of connections and the factors shaping connectedness in that specific context. The first aspect of the migration/knowledge transfer process concerns the contribution of networks to the physical movement of scientists, both in terms of outward and return flows. To the extent that knowledge is embedded in scientists, this process of mobility might be expected to involve a high degree of knowledge transfer. It cannot be assumed that knowledge is transferred in any perfect or complete sense, however, as this rather depends on the context within which the scientists are accruing and applying their skills. The second process concerns the importance of networks to ‘disembodied’ or ‘reverse’ knowledge flows. In...