A growing number of highly skilled workers including researchers are leaving corrupt nations where government officials demand bribes and control access to the labour market, finds a study published on 17 May (A. Ariu and M. P. Squicciarini EMBO Rep. http://doi.org/mkh; 2013). Nations with relatively low corruption benefit from an influx of scientists who write influential papers and patents and create businesses, says the study, which examined movement patterns in 123 nations against an international corruption index. “It is not a positive thing for a researcher to be in a country that is highly corrupt,” says study co-author Mara Squicciarini, an economist at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium.