UK Visa Scheme for Prize-winning Scientists Receives No Applications (newscientist.com) 171
Not a single scientist has applied to a UK government visa scheme for Nobel prize laureates and other award winners since its launch six months ago, New Scientist reported Tuesday. From a report: The scheme has come under criticism from scientists and has been described as "a joke." In May, the government launched a fast-track visa route for award-winners in the fields of science, engineering, the humanities and medicine who want to work in the UK. This prestigious prize route makes it easier for some academics to apply for a Global Talent visa -- it requires only one application, with no need to meet conditions such as a grant from the UK Research and Innovation funding body or a job offer at a UK organisation.
The number of prizes that qualify academics for this route currently stands at over 70, and includes the Turing Award, the L'Oreal-UNESCO for Women in Science International Awards, and various gongs awarded by professional or membership bodies both in the UK and elsewhere. "Winners of these awards have reached the pinnacle of their career and they have so much to offer the UK," said home secretary Priti Patel when the prestigious prize scheme launched in May. "This is exactly what our new point-based immigration system was designed for -- attracting the best and brightest based on the skills and talent they have, not where they've come from." But a freedom of information request by New Scientist has revealed that in the six months since the scheme was launched, no one working in science, engineering, the humanities or medicine has actually applied for a visa through this route.
The number of prizes that qualify academics for this route currently stands at over 70, and includes the Turing Award, the L'Oreal-UNESCO for Women in Science International Awards, and various gongs awarded by professional or membership bodies both in the UK and elsewhere. "Winners of these awards have reached the pinnacle of their career and they have so much to offer the UK," said home secretary Priti Patel when the prestigious prize scheme launched in May. "This is exactly what our new point-based immigration system was designed for -- attracting the best and brightest based on the skills and talent they have, not where they've come from." But a freedom of information request by New Scientist has revealed that in the six months since the scheme was launched, no one working in science, engineering, the humanities or medicine has actually applied for a visa through this route.
well... (Score:5, Insightful)
Fuck of foreigners! Hey wait where did they all go?
Re:well... (Score:5, Funny)
Typical remoaner we just don't need you any more [twitter.com].
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The recruitment video is also on YouTube [youtube.com] if you prefer Google for your big data spying needs. Just as persuasive there and will get all them damn lazy yorpeens back and picking strawberries.
Re: well... (Score:2)
Free kniving down and all...
Re: well... (Score:2)
There is also a great children's book about Brexit, in similar style.
https://www.whsmith.co.uk/prod... [whsmith.co.uk]
Re:well... (Score:5, Insightful)
This quote from the Guardian's coverage sums it up:
The University of Manchester academic, who was awarded the Nobel prize for physics in 2010 for his work on graphene, added: âoeThe scheme itself is a joke â" it cannot be discussed seriously. The government thinks if you pump up UK science with a verbal diarrhoea of optimism â" it can somehow become a self-fulfilling prophecy.â
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Re:well... (Score:5, Funny)
Their readers seem to fit this description as well. From a reader's letter:
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Brexit going splendid I see.
Re: well... (Score:2)
It's just fine thankyouverymuch! Jobs are on the rise, the business is booming.
Here's an email I received yesterday:
"Dear Pele,
I hope you are well.
My client is looking to recruit a low level Embedded Software Engineer, Inside of IR35 £65 per day.Â
The contract is based in Cardiff and requires 3/4 days on site. They are looking for someone who is skilled in Embedded C.Â
If you are interested please send me your updated CV as soon as possible as my client is looking to start interviewing i
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Re:well... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's like with companies that cut down on benefits in an attempt to get people to quit so they can save on benefits: It's never the ones that you want to get rid of that go by themselves, it's always the ones that keep your company afloat.
Because these people are good at their job, and thus can easily find something new where the grass is greener. What you're stuck with is the dregs that has to grin and bear it because they know that they can't find anything else.
heh (Score:5, Interesting)
The arrogance, though. The pool they wanted pretty much can live anywhere they want. If they weren't in the UK to start with, what would be the point of moving there? They don't like the sun? They have a desire for bad food?
Re:heh (Score:5, Insightful)
The food in England gets a bad rap but it's not really deserved. It's actually pretty decent and has been for a long time. The sun isn't an issue either, as there are a lot of scientists in Norway and they get less sun than we do. Amazing as it may sound.
It probably has a lot more to do with Thatcher closing almost all the major research centres and successive governments reducing funding for research of any kind in the theory that any worthwhile research will be paid for by industry. Industry waits for government, so virtually no research takes place in the UK anymore. It also turns out that, in addition to occasionally being able to do work, scientists like to eat, have petrol in their car, have clothes that were in style within the last 30 years, listen to music, etc. Things that cost the money they're not being paid because the universities are now all profit-making ventures and not places of learning.
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The most popular food in the UK is Indian. Actual British food is awful, but you can get foreign stuff so it's not too bad.
Post brexit food standards may be falling though, so need to keep an eye on that.
The weather is miserable. It's either too hot and humid, or it's damp and cold. AC is pretty rare here, and the heating is mostly crap. We have the oldest housing stock in Europe, and the new ones being built are the smallest in Europe. Smaller than Japanese homes by quite a bit.
Transport is crap, the gover
Actual british food (Score:2)
You do realize the British INVENTED roast beef, roast chicken, roast pig, etc? No I thought not.
British food cooked by uninterested talentless people down to a price is nasty, but there is nothing wrong with the recipes, techniques, or ingredients, done properly.
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Roast beef only became viable with the availability of spices. Before that it was difficult to preserve meat long enough to produce dishes like that since there was no refrigeration. When spices became available it was possible to cover up the bad taste of preserved meat.
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Except they didn't. Roasting meat is way older than Britain even if you count the pre-Anglo-Saxon kingdoms as Britain. Britain made a point that a certain class of people eats roast beef, that's all.
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You do realize the British INVENTED roast beef, roast chicken, roast pig, etc?
Câ(TM)est des conneries!
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"You do realize the British INVENTED roast beef, roast chicken, roast pig, etc? No I thought not."
No, no they did not. Come on.
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You do realize the British INVENTED roast beef, roast chicken, roast pig, etc? No I thought not.
LOL, fuck no. Not even close.
There were whole civilizations roasting these and other animals in the days you brits were still banging rocks together.
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Britain needs to return to its culinary roots, agriculture, and stop relying on bland imports. The problem is that everyone buys the cheapest stuff from the supermarket, and is compounded because too few people today have a solid grounding in real cooking. Microwaved meals in a tray, ugh. It also doesn't help that there aren't really any restaurants specializing in traditional British foods done well. Everywhere is either a chain selling burgers or a chain selling mediocre. Or Italian, Thai, Indian, Fre
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If you think The Sun isn't an issue, you never opened a page of the only tabloid I know that would offend dead fish if you used it to wrap it with it.
Prior to Brexit... (Score:2)
However, scientists need to move around with their data. Brexshit fucked all that up, plus the country is a laughing stock.
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Re: heh (Score:2)
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" It's actually pretty decent and has been for a long time"
There is ok food in England, particularly non-English ethnic food, but the day-to-day, middle-of-the-range English food is often not that good. I like this cultural explanation:
https://theoutline.com/post/85... [theoutline.com]
"The sun isn't an issue either, as there are a lot of scientists in Norway and they get less sun than we do"
Well, there aren't a lot of anyone in Norway, comparatively speaking, when you look at the population. I think the lack of sun would be
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I don't know about that. Last I heard Britain was first (I believe) in medical advancements per person. That was like half a decade ago, and maybe the actual research has done half a decade before that, but countries typically do not change that fast.
I also am rather confused about your last point. If science has become a profit seeking venture, would the scientists not be making more money?
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Curry seems to be the favorite food of brits now.
Re: heh (Score:2)
So Indian food you find in the UK right? Both the UK and US can have decent Cantonese food though the selections are generally limited relative to real Chinese food. The US has some great Mexican food too. I would lump the US and UK though both in the rather blah food category simply because these dishes come from immigrant cultures.
Honestly, Pakistani food is superb though I feel unlikely you will find the genuine thing in most any western culture. Most people don't like eating with your hands but while si
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Re: heh (Score:5, Interesting)
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I once went to a Swedish restaurant in Chicago, found out that a Greek-American had just bought it, was served by an African-American waitress and a Mexican-American busboy.
That's pretty multi-cultural.
Seriously, though, I think, at least in big city USA, the US has a very good multi-cultural food base. Of course, if you go to restaurants you will find really go
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If you want good swedish food, you would usually expect at least the chef to be swedish.
I've seen a lot of great restaurants founded by people cooking their native cuisine, only to sell to someone else and for the quality to plummet soon afterwards.
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If you want good swedish food, you would usually expect at least the chef to be swedish.
Agreed, although their instructions are sometimes difficult to follow. Bork bork bork!
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> indian and indian inspired and it is miles ahead of the food in the US
"Take that US based Indian immigrants. Our Indian immigrants are better... because they... come from India?!"
P.S. if you want more immigrants then I hear imitation is the greatest form of flattery:
https://catholicinsight.com/wp... [catholicinsight.com]
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"Take that US based Indian immigrants. Our Indian immigrants are better... because they... come from India?!"
More than 8 out of 10 Indian restaurants in the UK are owned and run by Bangladeshis (fun fact).
Re: heh (Score:2)
The USA has phenomenal food, but it is unevenly distributed. Here in Humboldt county I have found literally no restaurants worth going out to, but in high competition markets they tend to be mostly very good. They are unfriendly to new businesses in redneck enclaves like this. And I say that as someone whose neck has got plenty of sun for years now.
Re: heh (Score:2)
In those parts generally home cooking is far better. Maybe a good corn bread?
Any BBQ? Nice smoked ribs?
Re: heh (Score:2)
The point I was making was about genuine UK cuisine. We all know most cosmopolitan cities can have a mix of great tastes. I miss being able to generally find a good gyro in America but I don't tell people the food is good their because gyros and tacos.
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There is great British food. Venison, wild salmon, lobster straight from the sea off Scotland, fresh strawberries, asparagus straight from the ground and sold at a farmer's stall etc. etc.. There are even good bakeries and good cheese despite the reputation that all of that is terrible. The sad fact is that it's generally very expensive, most people never eat it and it's not very accessible if you aren't local and don't know the special spots to get it. The general impression that UK food is terrible i
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I am not sure that you really can call strawberries or asparagus genuine British food.
The common garden strawberry is a hybrid of two new world strawberries created in France centuries ago, the wild strawberry has been cultivated all over Europe before that.
As for asparagus, Germany is the top producer and consumer of asparagus in Europe (although I am German, I don't get the asparagus craze every spring when the stalls selling the stuff are popping out on every corner).
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Well, also you really have to make an effort to avoid eating too much fat and sugar. If you aren't in a big city it can happen that you find large supermarkets where all options of snacks are unhealthy (beside buying one of the few fruits).
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Anyone who thinks soups ought to be flavourless is really not in a position to criticise a country's food culture. Also... British soup is not really a thing.
British cheese, on the other hand, is monumentally good.
https://www.nealsyarddairy.co.... [nealsyarddairy.co.uk]
Re: heh (Score:2)
Soups can have many different flavors. I enjoy savory soups but I think many cultures can find this flavor lacking. I didn't say the should lack flavor but generally I prefer soups that lack spices.
The cheeses are quality.
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Re: heh (Score:2)
The pies can be quite delicious.
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Well expecting a typical brit (or any non italian) to cook an italian dish to any level of competency is a big ask at the best of times, but if you've spent the last few months eating really good italian food in italy it's going to be especially disappointing.
The major cities in the UK have a good selection of foreign restaurants, some of which are pretty good (and usually run by people from that country).
There is such a thing as good british food, things like roast dinners etc, but like any cuisine it's ea
Fuck off Patel (Score:4, Insightful)
Good luck getting any cryptographers to work in your police state.
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Amazingly, encryption research used to be a big thing in the UK. I seriously considered taking that as a course in my final year at uni, but they were only looking for people with much much stronger maths skills than I had at the time. It was a very select, elite group of people who studied cryptography.
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I know, right? They invented both Diffie-Hellman and RSA before we did, they just classified it.
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We invented computers first too, and classified it.
Re:Fuck off Patel (Score:4, Insightful)
You also had Alan Turing.
And you fucking blew it.
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Double entendres aside, Britain absolutely botched that one up royally, yes. IMHO, Britain has exceptionally good inventors, ethics vary between the brilliant and the neo-savage, and industry is crap. The ethics is potentially fixable, but I don't think Britain will return to being industrial. If Britain was re-cast as the R&D centre for the planet, rather than trying for glory days it will never recapture, I think it could do quite well.
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People with skills are trying to get out. Wages are low, inflation is high and the country as a whole is going down the pan.
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Reminds me of a company I worked for. They tightened the noose and made working there kinda uncomfortable because they wanted to get rid of staff but if they fired people, they'd have to pay them severance while if the people quit, they'd save on that.
The net result was that everyone who was actually good, and thus could easily find something new, and better, was quickly gone, while they were stuck with the slackers who either were too lazy to even search for new jobs or couldn't find any and thus had to ri
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Sounds to me like a government inspired "c'mon over and enjoy our gov. benefits" is not really a plug for capitalism.
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You are a Twat and I claim my 5 quid.
We have lots - they just happened to be employed by a certain government organisation that inhabits a doughnut shaped building and are strangely reticent to discuss their employment on FB.
If we need them from overseas we just tap our friends in the Five Eyes agreement for people.
The real cryptographic experts are already inside the tent or running lucrative consultancies with one very rich and private Government client.
UK? really? who wants to live there... (Score:2)
Sorry but I would never chose UK - there are so many nicer countries - even driving on the correct side of the road...
So this was probably put forward (Score:4, Informative)
That said, the pro-immigration crowd needs to figure out how to keep immigrants from taking jobs away from natural citizens. And I can already hear several people reaching for their reply button to say that doesn't happen. It does and just because it hasn't happened to you personally doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Yes there are a lot of low wage and abusive jobs, but you can't sit there and tell me that you're going to bring in people for the express purpose of being abused in low wage jobs when you're also campaigning to stop abusing people into low-wage jobs. I also don't want to hear that we need to bring them in for the sake of the GDP. That is literally trickle down economics.
If you want more immigration you need to first create an economy for the people who are already here feel safe and secure and their economic well-being. You need to create an economy where we're not seeing 60 or 70 sometimes even 80% of people living paycheck to paycheck. And you need to do that first and then we'll talk about more immigration. As the saying goes no pudding until you finish your meat. Fix the economy for the people who are already here or we will fight you tooth and nail and you'll get absolutely nothing done while losing ground in everything else you care about.
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The question is: how do you strike the balance? In Antique times and in the Middle Ages, you had strict rules which jobs are reserved for the citizenry, and which jobs could o
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Nobody, not even the left, addresses how precarious life is in the United States. They go on and on about equality but nobody talks about how easy it is to become homeless. I'll literally every aspect of your quality of life is entirely dependent on your job.
They have addressed it and suggested solutions, at which point people become indignant and scream something something socialism something something commie-bastards and how no real American would ever suggest such a thing!
All the while almost every other democratic country have some form of single payer healthcare and social nets to fend off the worst consequences if you get sick or if you lose your job. Of course, according to many Americans, this is something that's totally impossible and would never work
No, they haven't (Score:2)
Offering a solution is *not* the same as addressing the precariousness of American life. Instead they harp on about social justice and equality. This turns off a significant portion of the population, which they don't pay any attention to (the turning off, they care about that population, they're just terrible at expressing it).
The left needs to hire some mother fucking focus groups and ch
Re: That's not what the left needs to do (Score:2)
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But you also need to control it, so that only those who genuinely need it get help... Otherwise you will breed generations of people who are simply lazy and want to sit on their ass doing nothing while collecting free handouts from the government.
In every country with a welfare system, there are people who abuse the system for their own ends.
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In every country with a welfare system, there are people who abuse the system for their own ends.
In most countries that have welfare the number of people outright abusing the system is small compared to the people who use it because they actually need it.
And as with anything in the real world of course there will be exceptions and it's a sure thing there will be some people abusing the system. It's practically impossible to make sure there are absolutely no people abuse a given system. But if it's just a small number then the benefits of having the system far outweigh the disadvantages.
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What do you mean by "plenty of social safety nets"? In my state, welfare provides a family of three $632 a month [startribune.com] - that won't even cover rent for a one bedroom apartment locally.
There is subsidized housing, but that has a waiting list.
So what social safety net do you advise people to take advantage of?
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My empathy for the downtrodden does not imply a certain employment state.
Poverty is not a sign of moral failure. It's a state, and some people are unlucky enough to fall into it. That's not a reason to hate them.
And stop pretending that $
Re: That's not what the left needs to do (Score:2)
Plenty of social safety nets? That is dumb as fuck. Most jobs don't even pay a living wage, you think it's easy living on what passes for social programs in the USA? Try it sometime, you clearly haven't.
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Whoops. Never would have happened if I were on desktop at the time...
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Just in case anyone is falling for this shit, that's median household earnings. And it fell 2.7% in 2021, while inflation was over 4%.
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And yeah inflation is up and wages are down because of the Democrats
So your contention is that the democrats invented Covid-19, and/or somehow forced Trump to grossly flub the Covid response? I can see why you have to hide behind a bunch of puppet accounts. Why is Slashdot besieged by all these boring trolls these days? We used to have creative trolls, but I guess they all died of eating the peanuts out of their own shit, and now we are left with the dumb ones.
Re:So this was probably put forward (Score:5, Insightful)
You can't do much about competition for low end jobs. What you can do is give people opportunities to get better jobs. If the opportunities are there they won't be worrying about immigrants, they will be looking to improve their lot.
There is very little opportunity in the UK. The cost of living is high, and housing in particular is very expensive. Younger people are doing worse than their parents and blaming immigration, when it's actuality Tory austerity and Thatcherism that are to blame.
I guess my point is (Score:3)
It's well known that defense contractors make it a point to location their jobs in key districts to influence voters and politicians. But the left just won't shut up about it, and all I ever here is the same old line about always having money for wars that's been a losing talking point for 40+ years.
It's so frustrating that we kee
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You keep hearing about the same talking points because there is no interest in solving the problem, but a lot of interest in making sure gullible people remain in line. The talking points do that. Once you look deeper you find that democrats love wars, love nato, love spending money on projects in foreign country that will be floated to american countries where they own stock.
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You seem to have been suckered. The people who want humane and economically sensible immigration also want domestic fair labor. You have been suckered by the people saying they want to keep the immigrants out but actually just want to keep them on the black market to keep their wages depressed so that they can abuse both the immigrants themselves and the native workers who are vying for the same low-skill jobs. The illegal immigrant worker problem could be easily stopped by penalizing the employers. But
Reverse-colonization (Score:2)
When Europeans went to Africa, South America and other places to establish themselves or purchase/obtain slaves that was fine? Now that some people want to do the same thing but in reverse, for literally the same intents and reasons. It's bad? They are basically afraid, justifiably or not, of the things some of their ancestor's relatives, who they don't see as all that bad, did happening in reverse. It all worked out in the end, didn't it? Humans are so stupid.
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SS and Medicare are going bankrupt, and you want to limit immigration?
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Reverse colonization is OK? Deserved? Is that it?
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"You see what an insane world you leftists have brought"
"You leftists are insane, letting the New World Order, the Rothschilds, and Comet Pizza ally with the lizard people to put 5g tracking chips in COVID vaccines. You'll be sorry when JFK Jr. comes back; it's all part of our brilliant plan to overthrow the Illuminati!"
injecting a thought into the zeitgeist.... (Score:3, Interesting)
How about we get rid of all these pesky and imaginary borders and allow humans to move freely about the planet?
Re:injecting a thought into the zeitgeist.... (Score:5, Insightful)
How about we get rid of all these pesky and imaginary borders and allow humans to move freely about the planet?
Yes, then you can train your replacement who will do your job for just 10% what you were paid. And when you search for a new job, you find they've all been taken by low-wage immigrants. Then the elite wonder why Brexit happened...
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that does not scare me in the least.
A rising tide lifts all boats.
borders represent huge inefficiencies. barriers to movement of people, money, goods.
It is better to be more efficient than less efficient.
Would you rather have 50% of a 2 inch pie, or 10% of a 24 inch pie?
It is better to have more freedom of movement than less.
borders enable leaders/tyrants to treat people within those borders cruelly.
the natural state of any mammal is to have unrestricted movement. Animals do not respect national borders
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You are asking people to be nice. I mean....
Re:injecting a thought into the zeitgeist.... (Score:5, Insightful)
....A rising tide lifts all boats....
We've spent the last 40 years proving that a rising tide only lifts the mega yachts of the 0.1% elite. Most ordinary workers have their feet buried so deeply in the mud that they simply drown. The highly-educated middle class can swim, but they're not able to swim forever.
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Leaders would emerge on the world stage if there were no borders. And those leaders would be far more effective in their cruelties than our current world leaders, since there would be no checks on their power. Your imagination is trying to find the right place, but your day-dream is simply unfeasible in reality.
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Except of course for the part where people can't move and work freely, it's just goods that travel. Obviously you and the GP are not talking about the same thing. Also, "neoliberalism" mostly just means classic economic conservatism.
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And then we'll go back to nomadic tribes... People will move en masse to one area, destroy that area, and then move on.
The richer countries control immigration because if everyone who wanted to move there was allowed to do so their economies would collapse and they would end up in poverty and/or anarchy, and then they would all move somewhere else to escape the poverty and so you have an endlessly repeating cycle.
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While this is a fine idea in theory, just take a look at the US for an example of how that would end up in practice. One massive pile of failure for a government that's far more interested in raking in cash than caring for the citizens they supposedly work for. Massive amounts of real-estate that people are free to roam about and mingle. And a two party political system that's entrenched and used to weaponize words to the point where people are actually starting to kill each other over imaginary fights w
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Brain drain redux (Score:2)
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Re: Turing Award, I get. (Score:2, Troll)
The later doesn't necessarily select for cocks. And yet 97% have cocks. Are you being deliberately stupid?
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Maybe girls would talk to you if you tried to tone down the creepiness?