CaSE comment on the Government’s new Global Talent Taskforce

23 Jun 2025

The UK Government have announced a global talent drive to attract world-leading researchers and innovators. Alongside changes to current immigration policies, the drive sees the establishment of a Global Talent Taskforce and a £54 million fund to attract ten researchers and their teams to the UK.

“The Government’s Global Talent Taskforce is an important step in making the UK an attractive and accessible place for the brightest and best researchers from around the world. It is a real positive that it reports directly to the Prime Minister and Chancellor, a signal of the high importance placed on this by the Government. We look forward to working with the Government to make the necessary changes to the Global Talent Visa to make it more streamlined and accessible and would urge it to look again at reducing the very high upfront costs of the visa system. It is also important that the Taskforce looks to attract the top people at all research career stages. Today’s early career researchers are tomorrow’s Nobel Prize winners.”

Dr Daniel Rathbone

Deputy Executive Director, Campaign for Science and Engineering (CaSE):

CaSE recent analysis and evidence on skilled immigration:

Immigration White Paper – implications for attracting international R&D talent

Policy Manager Camilla d’Angelo takes a look at what the Immigration White Paper means for attracting international R&D talent to the UK.

Immigration White Paper – What’s next?

Policy Manager Camilla d’Angelo takes a look at some of the questions that remain to be resolved and what to expect next for the Immigration White Paper.

Public Attitudes to R&D and International Talent

This briefing summarises attitudes to immigration, international students and researchers, and their impact on UK R&D. It is based on evidence from a nationally representative survey of 4,100 UK adults in June 2024 and two focus groups in December 2024.

About CaSE

Campaign for Science and Engineering (CaSE) is the leading independent voice for UK R&D.

We are a charity supported by a diverse membership including businesses, universities, professional bodies, research charities and individuals. Our members span the whole breadth of R&D – including discovery research, science, engineering, and innovation across the public, private, and charitable sectors.

We collaborate with our members, partners, and the public to lend our clear, expert voice to decisions about research and development. We specialise in developing non-partisan, responsive solutions that help research and innovation to thrive in ways that improve people’s lives and livelihoods. CaSE’s public opinion programme aims to generate insights and data-informed advocacy tools that can support a behaviour change in how our sector advocates for R&D, with the aim of making R&D matter to more people. This programme is supported by a £2.7m grant from Wellcome for 2024-29, building on CaSE’s 2021-24 Discovery Decade programme.

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