Nobel prizewinners will be fast-tracked for UK visas under new rules announced by the Westminster government.
Laureates will be able to secure visas under the country’s “global talent” scheme without the usual requirement to secure an endorsement from a sponsoring organisation, such as UK Research and Innovation.
Other academic prizes that will allow holders to bypass the sponsoring requirement include the Charles Stark Draper Prize for Engineering; the Fields Medal for mathematics; the Holberg Prize for the humanities and social sciences; the International Prize awarded by the Fyssen Foundation; and the Turing Award for computing.
In reality, it would be unlikely that the holder of one of these prizes would not have secured an endorsement from a sponsoring organisation, but the new rules aim to streamline the process.
In a separate announcement, a new “roadmap” for India-UK relations outlines support for greater “two-way mobility of a greater number of students, teachers and researchers” between the countries.
The countries also pledged to agree “mutual recognition of qualifications before the end of 2021”, and “enhance development of direct linkages and partnerships between higher educational institutions of both the countries”.
