Global Canadians, Invisible at Home

Canada spends billions to attract international researchers, yet it pays remarkably little attention to Canadians who went abroad to gain that same international experience. Debates over academic hiring in Canada often centre on hiring American versus Canadian PhD graduates. Yet this debate overlooks a growing group of Canadians who fit neither side of the discussion: Canadians who earned their PhDs outside North America. 

Every year, Canadians pursue graduate studies in Europe, Asia and other parts of the world. Many hope to return home to build their academic careers. Instead, they often find themselves in an awkward and precarious position. They are neither American-trained to benefit from the prestige of elite U.S. institutions nor local enough to remain embedded in Canadian academic networks. In a hiring system that focuses on Canadian and American PhDs, internationally educated Canadians are often invisible. 

The absence of systemic data is itself revealing. We do not even know how many Canadians pursue doctoral training outside North America, how many remain abroad, or how many hope to return. A group largely absent from hiring debates is also missing from the data. 

Over the years, I have met many Canadians who pursued doctoral training outside North America. In conversations with them, I repeatedly heard similar stories: after completing undergraduate studies in Canada and graduate education abroad, many hoped to return but struggled to secure academic positions despite strong research records. While anecdotal, these experiences point to a broader question that deserves systematic study. 

I know this experience firsthand. As an undergraduate in Canada, I was encouraged by my professors to look beyond North America. They spoke enthusiastically about studying and conducting research abroad, reminding us that the world was much larger than the United States and Canada. Inspired by that advice, I followed my intellectual interests to Europe and Asia rather than pursuing graduate studies in North America. At the time, I never imagined that this decision might later complicate my return to Canada as an academic. 

Research has shown that international mobility strengthens research, knowledge diffusion and collaboration. Canada has made attracting international researchers a national priority, with a $1.7 billion recruitment plan. In particular, it announced the “international research and talent recruitment strategy” in 2025, which aims to attract approximately 1,000 academics in priority research areas. Yet one internationally mobile group remains largely absent from this conversation: Canadians who gained that experience abroad.  

An important question remains largely unasked: if internationally educated scholars are considered an asset, why do we pay so little attention to Canadians who acquire that same international experience abroad? 

One reason may be that academic hiring remains shaped by a specific evaluation system and prestige hierarchy. Doctoral training from other places, such as Germany, France, Japan, Singapore, China, South Korea, or the Netherlands, may be less familiar to hiring committees and does not neatly fit into the evaluation box. This is not because of lower quality but because it follows different academic traditions, publication cultures and institutional structures. As a result, internationally educated Canadians can be unintentionally overlooked despite possessing expertise that Canada desperately needs. They often struggle to translate their achievements into recognition within the Canadian system.  

The costs of overlooking globally educated Canadians go beyond individual careers. Universities thrive on intellectual diversity. Scholars trained in different academic traditions ask different questions, draw on different literatures and employ different methods. In the humanities and social sciences especially, this diversity broadens the range of ideas available to students and researchers alike. If Canadian universities recruit predominantly from a single intellectual ecosystem, they risk narrowing the perspectives through which they understand an increasingly complex world. 

Moreover, Canadian scholars who train abroad build broader professional networks, collaborate across borders and often produce more internationally connected research. They acquire linguistic skills, cultural fluency and firsthand knowledge of diverse intellectual traditions. For example, a Canadian trained in Germany, France, Japan, Singapore, or the Netherlands does not simply earn another degree. They gain novel insights, diverse theoretical perspectives and methods, and access to both international and local networks. These qualities are precisely what Canada needs in an era of global competition for talent. 

Canada’s future prosperity depends on engaging strategically with Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America, and other regions whose influence continues to grow. Our universities should reflect that reality. Internationally educated Canadians occupy a unique position: they combine a deep understanding of Canadian society with lived experience in other intellectual and cultural worlds. They are well placed to connect Canada to global networks of knowledge. 

As Canada reflects on its hiring practices and the future of its universities, the conversation should move beyond the familiar comparison between Canadian and American PhDs. It should also ask whether we are making full use of one of our most valuable yet often overlooked sources of global talent: Canadians who earned their PhDs outside North America.