Recent efforts by governments across the world to attract top scientific and graduate talent should prompt the UK to rethink its “costly” and “inflexible” visas for highly skilled workers, scientists and immigration experts have said.
While the UK’s introduction of a five-year Global Talent visa for research leaders, and the return of the two-year post-study work visa two years ago, have been welcomed by the sector, there are growing concerns that other countries are now moving faster to liberalise their visa regimes to make it easier for highly skilled staff, including researchers and PhD graduates, to emigrate.
In the US, the Biden-controlled White House is pushing to exempt those who hold a PhD in science or engineering from green card quotas, potentially fast-tracking these applications, while Australia has recently extended post-study visa rights for international students by two years for those working in areas of skills shortage, allowing these graduates and their families to stay for up to six years.
