According to a current report, there has not been a single application since the start of the special British visa program for science award winners from all over the world. “The program is a joke – it can’t be discussed seriously,” Andre Gaim, a Nobel Prize winner from the University of Manchester told New Scientist.
The basics in brief
- Since May, Nobel Prize winners and other winners of 70 prestigious prizes have been able to apply for so-called global talent visas and obtain the right to reside in Great Britain in a relatively unbureaucratic manner even after Brexit.
Home Secretary Priti Patel said such programs symbolized what her country was trying to achieve through the new points-based immigration system: people should be given the chance to live and work in the UK based on their qualifications, not their origins. In addition to Nobel Prize winners, applications from Oscar and Grammy winners must be given preferential treatment.
New Scientist’s Freedom of Information issue has now revealed that no representative of this target group has applied for such a visa in the first six months. According to many academics, working conditions in the UK are not attractive to many academics: many contracts are fraught with peril, and access to European funding programs after Brexit is difficult.
Britain’s Home Office said the Nobel Prize Winners Program was just one of several ways to get a global talent visa. “Thousands of requests” have already been received through other channels.
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