Winners of major prizes for film, theatre, science and technology — including Oscars — can now apply to live and work in Britain in a simpler process, the UK government said Wednesday.
Those eligible include winners of the Turing Prize for computing, various Academy Awards, Bafta awards for best actor or actress, Brit awards for music and the Nobel Prize for Literature.
The scheme, as Britain shakes up its immigration system post-Brexit, is a “streamlined route to work and live in the UK” for the “world’s most talented”, the government said.
Home Secretary Priti Patel said the reform was intended to attract “the best and brightest” from around the world.
The move is an update to the rules for the existing “global talent” visa, aimed at leaders and potential leaders in academia or research, arts and culture and digital technology.
The new measure allows those with exceptionally high attainment in their field to come to Britain without a job offer.
They will also not need to get their application endorsed by a UK organisation in their field but instead simply fill in a single visa application.
Before Britain’s departure from the European Union took full effect on January 1 this year, anyone with a EU passport could study, live and work in Britain and vice-versa.
Now EU citizens with a job offer are required to prove English-language skills and a minimum salary.
This year, a points-based immigration system is being brought in, making it much harder for Europeans to live in Britain, as the country looks further afield for potential students and professionals.
On Tuesday, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Indian counterpart Narendra Modi during a virtual meeting launched a “comprehensive partnership on migration and mobility”.
New Delhi said the scheme will allow up to 3,000 young Indian professionals to work in the UK for two years, “without being subject to labour market test”.
Britain’s Home Secretary Priti Patel said it would provide new opportunities for “thousands of young people in the UK and India seeking to live, work and experience each other’s cultures”.
“This agreement will also ensure that the British government can remove those with no right to be in the UK more easily and crackdown on those abusing our system.”
