The Wellcome Sanger Institute calls on the UK Government to address immigration and visa issues
Sanger’s Head of Policy and Advocacy, Sarion Bowers, together with the Campaign for Science and Engineering (CaSE), highlights immigration and visa issues that are preventing international talent from coming to the UK, on which we depend to remain a global scientific leader.
23 September 2025
The Wellcome Sanger Institute is home to researchers from around the globe. Our world-leading science is dependent on recruiting the best international talent and collaborating with research teams around the world. Many of our researchers have worked in several different countries during their career, learning valuable skills and building experience – the ability to live and work in countries around the world is critical to the development of British talent. The UK benefits both from sending our researchers overseas, and from immigration bringing in talent, ideas and knowledge. We must strive for a reciprocity in these arrangements in order to maintain our global leadership in science.
Currently, the UK has one of the most expensive immigration systems in the world, and it is driving out global talent and costing UK employers, such as the Sanger Institute, significant sums of money. We currently have dedicated immigration staff who help our researchers navigate the UK visa and immigration system, we pay for external legal advice, and we support our staff through a range of loans and covering some costs. However, increasingly the rhetoric and the costs are proving too much for many people who do not see the UK as a desirable destination to do their science.
Science has long played a role in soft democracy. It maintains and builds relationships between countries, and the UK benefits from global collaborations. Science is not a zero sum game and it is not a competition with winners or losers. We win together or we lose apart. At a time when the UK could be strengthening its global leadership through its science, we continue to deter scientists from coming to our country and we damage our global standing.
Immigration is critical for UK research and development (R&D), and we ask the UK Government to address the following:
- The Global Talent Visa is confusing for both applicants and immigration professionals to navigate. We call on the Government to simplify this route and make it more accessible to researchers seeking employment in the UK.
- The current immigration framework places a significant burden on research organisations, like the Sanger Institute. We have to employ additional staff and instruct external legal counsel to support us. We ask the government to streamline the processes for researchers coming to the UK, to ensure it is manageable for organisations who routinely engage with the immigration process.
- The costs of visas and the Immigration Health Surcharge are prohibitive, particularly for early career researchers. They make the UK an undesirable location for global talent, and they cost organisations significant sums, which otherwise could have been used to deliver world-leading science.
We have worked with the Campaign for Science and Engineering (CaSE), alongside other UK research organisations, to produce this briefing and highlight these issues.
