Developing countries are facing the loss of their talents due to high levels of migration towards the developed world. To counter this they are creating mechanisms and policies in science and technology to benefit from those national talents further developed abroad. This study of Cuba explores the value of Cuban scientists and engineers in Europe and reviews their potential for contributing to Cuban science through Transnational Knowledge Networks (TKNs).\ud
This empirical investigation examines two essential conditions for the development of TKNs: first, it provides a demonstration of the scientific capacity in Cuba as a sending country, and second, profiles the Cuban expatriate scientists in Europe as active researchers (CRiE). Both investigations were carried out through bibliometric methods using bibliographic databases such as PubMed and Scopus. Cuban expatriate scientists were identified through a systematic search in professional social networks such as LinkedIn, ResearchGate and Academia.edu before compiling their scientific records for bibliometric evaluation. Cuban researchers in Cuba (CRiC) were the also evaluated as a cohort group. The empirical investigation covered the period between 1995 and 2014. The main contribution of this investigation is to support the idea that TKNs are embedded in the global network of international scientific collaboration and this feature would enable expatriates to function as instruments for development of Cuban science.\ud
The primary dataset was created using the scientific publications of expatriate scientists obtained from the Scopus database in the period between 1995 and 2014. Records in Scopus also include affiliations of all authors in each publication allowing the creation of another dataset of expatriate research links with other institutions. Network analysis using UCINET software was also used to study the degree of connectivity of the expatriate scientists. Results show the demography, performance and connectivity of a scientific community (Cuban researchers in Europe) and demonstrate their potential to strengthen the networking capacity of the home country