FIELD INTERVIEW / NEPAL
Professor Kapil Adhikari
Professor
Nepal · July 2026
Education / Brain Drain / Institutional Trust / Development
A physicist educated in the United States who returned to Nepal to teach, Professor Kapil Adhikari offered a perspective on higher education, research opportunities, migration, career development, institutional trust, and the decision to return home.
CONTEXT
Why I Wanted This Perspective
Before this conversation, I was investigating how public policy is experienced through work, institutions, and everyday choices. This perspective was useful because it could complicate the question rather than settle it. I wanted to understand where professional experience, personal observation, and broader policy conditions aligned—or did not align.
[ADD YOUR OWN FIELD CONTEXT AND RESEARCH QUESTION]
INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
Questions I Asked
01 / EDUCATION & OPPOTUNITY
How do educational opportunities in Nepal compare with those available abroad?
02 / BRAIN DRAIN
Why do talented students leave Nepal, and what might encourage them to return?
03 / TRUST & DEVELOPMENT
How does trust in institutions affect investment and long-term development?
04 / NEPAL'S FUTURE
What does Nepal need to create a stronger sense of opportunity for younger generations?
INTERVIEW FINDINGS
What I Heard
01 / EDUCATION
Professor Adhikari described Nepalese students as capable but constrained by fewer educational resources, research opportunities, and smaller academic communities.
Key Finding - Differences in educational outcomes can reflect differences in opportunity and environment rather than ability.
02 / GOVERNACE
Professor Adhikari argued that criticism should be accompanied by realistic plans and constructive solutions. He emphasized collaboration, consensus, and long-term planning in governance.
Key Finding - Identifying problems is different from building the institutions and plans needed to address them.
03 / BRAIN DRAIN
He argued that brain drain itself is not the central problem. The deeper challenge is whether young people can see a credible future for themselves in Nepal.
Key Finding - Retaining talent requires more than asking people to stay; it requires creating opportunities that give them a reason to believe they can build a future at home.
04 / TRUST & DEVELOPMENT
He connected economic development with trust, arguing that people invest when they trust institutions, government, and society, while also emphasizing that trust should be based on logic rather than blind faith.
Key Finding - Economic development depends not only on money, but also on confidence in the institutions surrounding investment.
DIRECT QUOTATION
“We Are Hopeful, But What Is the Base?”
FIELD REFLECTION
What Changed in My Thinking
BEFORE THE INTERVIEW
I initially understood brain drain mainly as a problem of talented people leaving Nepal for better salaries, education, and career opportunities abroad since I am also a student planning to study abroad.
WHAT COMPLICATED IT
Professor Adhikari shifted the question from whether people should leave to what exists for them to stay or return to.
His question, “We are hopeful, but what is the base?” stayed with me. Hope alone does not create research opportunities, careers, functioning institutions, or confidence in the future.
AFTER THE INTERVIEW
I began thinking about brain drain less as the movement of people and more as a question of institutional conditions.
The question became not simply how Nepal can stop talented people from leaving, but how it can create an environment in which leaving, returning, and contributing can all become part of long-term development.