The booming economies of Brazil, China, India, Singapore and possibly Russia could face significant science and engineering work-force shortages as soon as next year, a group of recently released studies suggests.

Demographers from these countries analysed government data to predict the future size of the science and engineering workforce, as part of a project called 'The Evolving Global Talent Pool', coordinated by the State University of New York's Levin Institute in New York City. They presented their analyses at a 30 October symposium in Manhattan (see http://go.nature.com/9gAO2c). Although the various analyses were released at different times over the past four years, this is the first time that country trend comparisons have been highlighted.

The numbers suggest that mismatches between talent supply (the number of graduates that the countries' universities are cranking out) and demand in government, industry and academic sectors could become particularly acute within a decade. According to the report, significant shortages of graduates are likely to be evident by next year, despite considerable investment in higher education and research and development by each country's government. This raises a serious question, it says, about whether corporations, education systems and societies understand the demand issue correctly.

China's supply of relevant professionals, for example, is expected to be 3.48 million next year. But demand will have soared to some 3.85 million by then, and will rise to 5.9 million in 2015, according to data compiled by Denis Fred Simon, a professor at Pennsylvania State University's School of International Affairs in University Park, and Cong Cao, a senior research associate at the Levin Institute.

India faces a shortage of 60,000 engineers by 2010 and 2.45 million by 2020, according to R. Venkatesan and Wilima Wadhwa of India's National Council of Applied Economic Research in New Delhi. And Poh Kam Wong of the National University of Singapore predicted that the island state would produce just 55.2% of the science and technology professionals it would need in 2010, requiring some 44,000 foreigners to fill the gap.

However, although there are big shortages in some fields in these countries, there are surpluses in others. Aspiring scientists and researchers may not receive market signals about job availability quickly enough, according to Simon.

“Very few countries do demand-side analysis,” says Simon. A lack of quality training and education also contributes to the shortages, says the report, because many graduates in these countries have degrees from institutions with a high proportion of poorly qualified faculty.

The studies have an important caveat: the type and extent of the data available in each country vary widely, and governments use different demographic categorizations of science and technology professionals. China's statistics, for example, included as science or engineering professionals people without degrees who have been working in those fields for at least 10 years.