International researchers hoping to get visas to work in the UK will not be hit as badly as feared by the government’s decision last year to limit immigration for highly-skilled migrants.

Details of the new visa rules, published today, show that scientists will get priority if more people want visas each month than the government’s quota allows.

The decision follows sustained campaigning, a letter by eight Nobel laureates, and reporting by the Times newspaper showing how an interim visa cap had kept researchers out of Britain (you’ll need a subscription to The Times to see its coverage of this story).

Overall, 20,700 skilled non-EU migrants will be allowed in annually (down from 28,000 in 2009); 1,500 a month after an initial 4,200 when the quotas take effect in April. Their suitability is assessed with a points-based visa system, and the rules show that ‘shortage occupations’ (most of which involve scientists) get top billing, with jobs that need a doctorate also highly rated.

Imran Khan, the director for the London-based advocacy group Campaign for Science and Engineering in the UK (CaSE), is “delighted” by the new system. “While we still disagree that a cap on scientists and engineers is something the Government should have at all, and are wary of plans to limit student visas, these proposals should mean that the UK can continue to work with the globalised world of research,” he says (statement and links on CaSE website).

Around 16% of UK universities’ science, engineering and technology staff were not from the European Union in 2008-09 (see chart, data from HESA).