The Chinese government hopes a new visa will encourage talented young researchers to move there.Credit: VCG via Getty
China has introduced a visa that will allow young foreign researchers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) to move there without having to secure a job first.
Before the introduction of the K visa, most foreign STEM researchers hoping to move to China had to find a job in advance and then apply for a work visa.
The Chinese government is making “a serious bid” to attract the world’s brightest minds in STEM, says Jeremy Neufeld, the director of immigration policy at the Institute for Progress, a think tank in Washington DC. South Korea, Singapore and several other countries have also launched STEM-oriented visa programmes.
The K visa was officially rolled out on 1 October, but Nature understands that applications are yet to open. Few details about eligibility have been released, except that restrictions will apply on the basis of an applicant’s age, education and work experience. Foreign researchers who have graduated from ‘famous’ universities or institutes in China or abroad with a bachelor-or-higher degree in STEM will be eligible to apply. That also includes people who teach or research STEM topics in such organizations.
A ‘big step forward’
The visa is designed to help the country boost its competitiveness in areas that it deems important for its future, such as artificial intelligence (AI), robotics and new materials, says Yuen Yuen Ang, a political economist at Johns Hopkins University in in Baltimore, Maryland. As the US government cuts back on its support for science, Chinese leaders see an opportunity to attract the best foreign scientists, particularly those working in fundamental research, Ang says.
Lu Fengming, a political economist at the Australian National University in Canberra, says it is a big step for the Chinese government to allow scientists to move to the country without a job offer. Sponsorship is needed for most other Chinese visa types, Lu says. The visa is a smart move given China’s desire to attract global talent, he adds.
The country’s immigration figures are relatively low compared with those of other leading science nations. In 2023, only 0.05% of China’s overall population were foreigners, compared with 4.9% in South Korea and 14.3% in the United States, according to an analysis by Direct HR, a recruitment firm based in Shanghai. It is unclear how many of them work in STEM, but some estimates show that China has 5,000–10,000 foreign researchers with a PhD, compared with at least 100,000 foreign scholars at this level in the United States.
However, the United States is now restricting some immigration. In late September, the administration of President Donald Trump imposed a US$100,000 fee on applications for an H-1B visa, which many foreign STEM researchers rely on to live in the country.
“While the US seemed to be raising barriers, China sent a strong counter-signal that it was opening its doors,” says Changhee Kim, a human-resource researcher at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University in Suzhou, China.
But Wang Zichen, a research fellow at the Center for China and Globalization, a think tank based in Beijing, says China did not launch the K visa on a whim. He notes that the government called for “more proactive, open and effective talent policies” as early as 2022.
