Global argonauts: returnees and diaspora as sources of innovation in China and Israel.

The paper focuses on returnees and knowledge diaspora as important sources for human resources development, identifying push and pull factors that also contribute significantly to innovation. For both China and Israel, their high-skilled diaspora are a major policy priority: each has a substantial, high-skilled diaspora and policies and programmes to promote their return and/or greater involvement. By outlining key projects and schemes in each to recruit international professionals, we argue that bringing advanced knowledge and skills gained through international education and experiences back home has long been common to both. The relative strengths and weaknesses of each system's relations with returnees and diaspora is assessed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]