Indonesia is a large country with a young population and ambitions to become one of the world’s leading economies. But population alone does not create prosperity. The more important question is whether Indonesia can develop, attract and connect enough highly skilled people to move its economy forward.
Indonesia has more than 280 million people. That gives the country a huge workforce, a large domestic market and potentially one of the world’s biggest pools of talent.
But having many people is not the same as having enough highly skilled people.
This is becoming increasingly important as economic competition moves toward artificial intelligence, advanced manufacturing, biotechnology, semiconductors, digital services and other knowledge intensive industries.
Indonesia’s challenge, therefore, may not simply be creating more jobs. It may be creating enough people who can do the high value jobs of the future.
There is an interesting way to understand this problem.
Stanford sociologist Gi Wook Shin calls it Talent Portfolio Theory. Instead of looking at the old debate between “brain drain” and “brain gain,” Shin argues that countries can manage talent in four different ways: brain train, brain gain, brain circulation and brain linkage.
The four approaches help explain how countries such as Japan, Australia, China and India built their human capital.
They may also provide a useful framework for thinking about Indonesia.
Brain Train: Build Talent at Home
The first strategy is brain train.
The idea is simple. A country develops its own people through schools, universities, vocational education, research institutions and companies.
Japan is one of the clearest examples.
Shin’s research describes Japan as a country that historically relied heavily on homegrown talent. Its universities and companies developed scientists, engineers, managers and researchers domestically rather than depending heavily on foreign talent.
Japan’s Nobel Prize history illustrates the strength of this domestic system. Many Japanese Nobel laureates received their main university education in Japan. Nobel laureate Isamu Akasaki, for example, studied electrical engineering at Kyoto University and received his doctorate from Nagoya University. Shinya Yamanaka studied medicine at Kobe University and completed his doctorate at Osaka City University before conducting research overseas.
The frequently repeated claim that “80 percent of Japanese Nobel winners never studied abroad” is much harder to establish precisely from Nobel records. The broader point, however, is supported: Japan developed a powerful domestic education and research system capable of producing world class scientists.
This is where Indonesia still faces a serious challenge.
According to the OECD’s PISA 2022 assessment, only 18 percent of Indonesian 15 year olds reached at least Level 2 proficiency in mathematics. The figure was 25 percent for reading and 34 percent for science.
Almost no Indonesian students reached the highest PISA performance levels in mathematics, reading or science.
This does not mean Indonesian children are less intelligent.
PISA measures what students have learned and their ability to apply knowledge. The results therefore point more toward weaknesses in education and learning outcomes than toward differences in intelligence.
Improving Indonesia’s talent base consequently requires much more than increasing university enrolment. It requires stronger schools, better teachers, research universities, vocational institutions and an environment where talented people can continue learning.
That is brain train.
Brain Gain: Bring Talent In
The second strategy is brain gain.
Instead of producing every skill domestically, countries can attract talented people from overseas.
Australia is one example identified in Shin’s research. Skilled immigration has played an important role in the country’s development, with foreign born workers making up a significant part of its workforce.
Singapore has adopted a similar approach.
Its Ministry of Manpower openly states that the country wants to attract international experts who bring specialised knowledge, business networks and capabilities that can help companies grow while transferring knowledge to the local workforce.
This strategy is especially relevant in industries where technology changes faster than universities can produce specialists.
Indonesia does not necessarily need to wait 10 or 20 years to produce every expert it needs.
It could attract scientists, engineers, artificial intelligence researchers, chip designers, university professors, entrepreneurs and experienced technology executives from other countries while simultaneously developing Indonesians to work alongside them.
Foreign talent should therefore not automatically be seen as replacing Indonesian workers.
Under a well designed brain gain strategy, foreign specialists can help create industries in which Indonesians eventually become specialists themselves.
Brain Circulation: Send People Out, Then Bring Knowledge Back
The third approach may be particularly important for Indonesia.
It is called brain circulation.
China provides perhaps the clearest example.
Beginning with its economic reforms in 1978, China sent enormous numbers of students overseas to study in countries with advanced universities and technology industries.
By 2024, 8.88 million Chinese students had studied abroad since 1978, according to China’s Ministry of Education.
Of the 7.43 million who had completed their studies, 6.44 million had returned to China.
This is an extraordinary movement of human capital.
Students left China, learned in foreign universities and research laboratories, gained international experience and then brought much of that knowledge back.
Over time, returning talent became part of China’s growing technology and research ecosystem.
This helps explain why brain drain does not always need to remain brain drain.
People leaving can become an investment if knowledge, experience and networks eventually return.
Indonesia already has a mechanism that could form part of such a strategy: LPDP.
Since 2013, LPDP had supported 58,360 scholarship recipients by November 2025, including students studying both domestically and internationally.
By February 2026, LPDP reported 58,444 degree scholarship recipients, alongside hundreds of thousands of participants in education programmes conducted with other government institutions.
These are important numbers.
But compared with China’s decades long international talent strategy, Indonesia is still operating at a very different scale.
A serious brain circulation strategy would mean deliberately sending much larger numbers of talented Indonesians into world class universities, laboratories and companies, particularly in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
The important part is not simply sending them overseas.
Indonesia also needs universities, research laboratories, companies, salaries and career opportunities attractive enough for them to return.
Otherwise brain circulation becomes brain drain.
Brain Linkage: They Do Not Always Have to Come Home
There is another possibility.
What if Indonesians living overseas do not return?
That leads to the fourth strategy: brain linkage.
India provides an important example.
India is the world’s largest source of international migrants. According to UN based estimates, about 18.5 million people born in India were living outside the country in 2024.
Some have reached the highest levels of the global technology industry.
But the importance of the Indian diaspora is not simply that successful Indians work overseas.
Their networks can connect India with global companies, universities, investors, technologies and markets.
Shin’s research argues that India has been particularly effective at using these connections. Instead of requiring overseas talent to permanently return, India has benefited from transnational networks linking people abroad with businesses and institutions at home.
A software engineer working in California, for example, can mentor entrepreneurs in Bengaluru.
A scientist at an American university can collaborate with researchers in India.
An executive at a multinational company can help connect Indian companies with international markets.
Knowledge can move even when people do not.
That is brain linkage.
Indonesia’s Diaspora Is Bigger Than Many People Think
Indonesia actually has more potential for brain linkage than is sometimes assumed.
Claims that Indonesia has only 250,000 people in its diaspora are not supported by government figures.
Indonesia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in 2025 that there were more than 8 million members of the Indonesian diaspora worldwide.
The exact number depends heavily on how “diaspora” is defined. Some estimates include Indonesian citizens abroad, former Indonesian citizens and descendants of Indonesians living overseas.
Government publications have therefore generally placed the Indonesian diaspora at roughly 7 million to 8 million people, rather than hundreds of thousands.
That is considerably smaller than India’s diaspora under some broader definitions, but it is far from insignificant.
Indonesia therefore does have the potential to develop brain linkage.
Indonesian academics overseas could collaborate with universities at home.
Engineers working for international technology companies could mentor Indonesian startups.
Scientists could establish joint laboratories.
Entrepreneurs could connect Indonesian companies with foreign investors.
Senior professionals could open international career paths for younger Indonesians.
They do not necessarily have to return permanently for Indonesia to benefit.
Interestingly, Indonesia’s government is beginning to move in this direction.
In August 2026, President Prabowo Subianto proposed allowing limited dual citizenship for certain Indonesians with specialised talents, explicitly mentioning scientists, doctors, engineers, artificial intelligence experts, researchers and entrepreneurs. The government described Indonesia’s diaspora as a potential source of global talent for national development.
Whether and how such a proposal eventually becomes law is a separate question. But the direction reflects a growing recognition that nationality, mobility and talent policy are closely connected.
Indonesia Does Not Need to Choose Only One Strategy
Perhaps the most important lesson from Talent Portfolio Theory is that countries do not need to choose between these four approaches.
They can use all four.
Indonesia can train more talent at home.
It can bring highly skilled foreign talent into Indonesia.
It can send Indonesians overseas to study and work, then create reasons for them to return.
And it can build strong networks with Indonesians who decide to remain overseas.
Shin argues that successful national talent strategies behave almost like investment portfolios. Countries diversify their sources of talent rather than relying entirely on one approach.
That idea may matter greatly for Indonesia.
With more than 280 million people, Indonesia does not lack human beings.
The challenge is turning population into human capital.
And in an economy increasingly driven by knowledge, artificial intelligence and advanced technology, natural resources and cheap labour will not be enough.
The countries that move higher in the global value chain will increasingly be those that can develop, attract, circulate and connect talented people.
Indonesia already has pieces of all four strategies.
The bigger question is whether it can operate them at the scale required for a country of its size.