Bridging Engineering Education and Industry to Mitigate Graduate Migration: A Multi-Theoretical Conceptual Framework

The emigration of engineering graduates—commonly framed as 'brain drain'—poses a sustained threat to the innovation capacity and industrial upgrading of sending countries. While scholarship has examined employability, curriculum reform, and university–industry partnerships (UIPs), the explicit role of structured UIPs as mechanisms for reducing migration intentions remains under-theorized. This paper develops a multi-theoretical, policy-oriented conceptual framework that specifies how concrete UIP mechanisms (curriculum co-design, structured internships and co-op placements, applied capstone projects, sustained mentorship, and university-industry entrepreneurial ecosystems) operate through mediators (skill alignment, employability, professional identity, and embeddedness and social capital) to reduce the propensity of engineering graduates to emigrate. Integrating push–pull dynamics with human capital, social capital, embeddedness, and career construction theories, we articulate five testable propositions, link each proposition to specific pedagogical innovations and operational indicators, and propose an empirical agenda (tracer surveys, structural equation models, and quasi-experimental evaluations). The contribution is both theoretical—by synthesizing complementary lenses into a cohesive causal model—and practical—by offering measurable policy levers and actionable institutional KPIs for universities, industrial partners, and policymakers.

Keywords:

university–industry partnerships , engineering education , brain drain , engineering graduates migration , employability , embeddedness , career construction , policy levers