This month’s Editorial in Nature Cell Biology (9, 855; 2007), “Scaling the EU visa barrier”, addresses the fact that laboratories depend on an international workforce, yet crossing national boundaries remains a trial of endurance for many academics both in the United States and Europe.

From the Editorial: “Realizing that unnecessary visa hurdles hinder attracting global talent to Europe, the EU Council ”https://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:32005L0071:EN:NOT">issued a directive in 2005 to streamline the process for visa applications by non-EU scientists.The details of the process — which can sometimes take months — varies between EU states and depends on the applicant’s nationality. It often involves interviews with consular officials, expensive medical appointments with consulate-prescribed doctors, and a hefty dossier of supporting material to document one’s ties to the country of origin. A key feature of this directive is that the host institution in the EU provides a ‘hosting agreement’ that would allow the applicant to obtain a residence permit rapidly without also having to obtain a work permit. Under the aegis of this ‘scientific visa’, ‘third-country nationals’ (non-EU citizens) can also conduct research for less than three months in EU states other than the primary hosting country, subject to the visa and entry regulations of the individual country. The directive is to be implemented in member states by October 2007 but has so far been adopted by only four EU members: Austria, Slovenia, Slovakia and, most recently, Germany. Notably, the UK, which hosts a large proportion of non-EU scientists and has a cumbersome visa-granting system in developing countries, is not legally bound to translate the directive into national law."

After providing some case histories, the Editorial goes on to propose that for scientists based in the EU, a special long-term, multiple-entry visa category is required to enable third-country nationals to travel freely throughout the EU. “The National Academies in the US have proposed a similar policy for scientists’ visas. They and other agencies, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, have advocated effectively for changes to US visa policies. It is time that the European Research Council and European scientific societies did the same.”