Scientists fear tough UK immigration rules will deter talent
Cost increases and restrictions on visa-holders bringing family members will put off researchers, warn scientists
The UK government is imposing new visa rules in a bid to curb immigration.Credit: Ian Vogler/Getty
New restrictions on UK visas are making the country unattractive to foreign scientists who want to work or study there, researchers say.
In December, the UK government announced that it intends to increase the salary threshold for foreign nationals wishing to enter the United Kingdom on a skilled worker visa from £26,200 to £38,700. The change hasn’t been implemented yet, but might affect postdoctoral researchers, whose salaries are often below the new cut-off.
And this month, changes to UK student visas came into force meaning that new foreign undergraduates cannot bring family members with them. Other changes include increases in the cost of applying for a UK visa and of the health-care surcharge that migrants pay for access to the UK National Health Service. The surcharge for adults will rise from £624 (US$794) a year to £1,035 a year.
“Salary-threshold increases, combined with the recent large increases in visa costs, create a real risk that the UK is seen as a less attractive place for the world’s brightest and best students and researchers,” says Daniel Rathbone, interim executive director of Campaign for Science and Engineering (CaSE), a science-advocacy group in London.
Brexit effect
The changes are being implemented by a Conservative government that is focused on cutting immigration. The party also oversaw the vote for Brexit and its subsequent execution, which has made it harder for many international scientists to work in Britain and has prevented UK-based scientists from joining certain international collaborations.
Many say that the changes have left the UK science community lagging behind. “Once you have frozen something, defrosting it does take a lot of time and a lot of effort. So moves like this really do affect the science community for a long time afterwards,” says Mike Galsworthy, a former health-science researcher who is chair of the European Movement UK group, which is campaigning to reverse Brexit.
Postdocs typically earn more than the old salary threshold for the skilled worker visa and were on a list of exemptions to threshold, which meant that they could earn less and still be eligible for the visa. But full details of the latest changes have not yet been released, says Madeleine Sumption, director of the Migration Observatory project at the University of Oxford, UK, which analyses UK migration data. “We don’t know if the exemption for postdoctoral roles will be carried through,” she says. If postdocs are no longer exempt, Sumption says that a postdoc applying on a typical starting salary might “just scrape through”. But this will depend on the candidate’s institution and career stage.
The salary-threshold increase to £38,700 is crazy, says Galsworthy. The government’s actions send a strong signal to foreigners already working in Britain, he says. “The message that goes out to them is ‘go home’.”
A spokesperson for the UK Home Office, which deals with visas, told Nature: “The government will ensure the UK continues to attract the best and brightest global talent”, and pointed to visa routes such as the Global Talent scheme, which is open to people who excel in academia and research. “However, the Prime Minister has made clear current levels of migration to the UK are far too high, the spokesperson said.
The hike in the health surcharge is the change likely to have the most immediate effect on researchers, says Sumption, especially those with families. She points out that someone coming to the country on a five-year skilled-worker visa with a spouse and two children might end up having to spend around £20,000 on the heath surcharge.
Another concern is whether laboratory technicians, who generally make less than postdocs, will be exempt from the salary threshold. “The bottom line is huge uncertainty about whether lab technicians will continue to be eligible for work visas,” Sumption says.
‘A negative image’
“All these changes combine to create a negative image of the UK as a place to come to and do research,” says Rathbone. But the effect will be hard to track. “It’s difficult to measure the impact directly because you can’t count people who are put off applying for a visa in the first place.”
Sumption says that once the government enacts the policies, she and her colleagues will be able to track whether the same number of scientists are coming to the United Kingdom. They are expecting to see a decrease in the number of foreign undergraduate students, who pay high fees that are an important source of funds for UK universities.
When the threshold changes were announced, some postdocs expressed their concerns on X, formerly Twitter. “As a postdoc working in the UK — my visa expires a year from now, and my current salary is well under this threshold, so I’m ineligible for an extension, it seems?” wrote Gulnara Tagirdzhanova, a postdoc who studies plant science at the Sainsbury Laboratory in Norwich, UK. “My feelings aside, this looks like the government is deliberately undermining UK science. Why?”
On 1 January, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak noted the student-visa family policy coming into force in a post on X, prompting some European researchers to respond “Dear international students and talents from around the world, note that German universities welcome foreign students, are tuition free and many subjects are taught in English,” wrote Björn Schumacher, a geneticist at the University of Cologne in Germany. “Germany has become an open and liberal society in contrast to what the UK government is implementing.”
In a statement to Nature, Universities UK, which represents 142 UK universities, said, “We recognise there is a need to review the minimum salary threshold given this has not been increased in recent years, however an increase of nearly 50% will have a significant impact on our ability to recruit the high skilled international talent which universities rely on.”
“The UK government says that they love science, but they are showing extremely little awareness of what makes a vibrant science community,” says Galsworthy.
doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-00123-7
This story originally appeared on: Nature - Author:Katharine Sanderson
