We launched Passport to Progress, our attempt at sketching out the world’s most pro-innovation visa system, in partnership with ABE Global, an education non-profit, with an event in the House of Lords on 6 September 2023.
As the author of the report, I delivered the following remarks hoping to summarise the report while tying it with my experience of immigration:
Our recent report, Passport to Progress, is a special thing for me. Not only because it’s my first solo project for The Entrepreneurs Network or because I met so many cool people thanks to it.
But because I’m an immigrant myself.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying this as a clingy cliche as if I’m talking to Oprah. Since the UK is one of the most welcoming countries there is, if not the most, my story of migration is nothing dramatic. Well, this might be me getting used to the British culture of taking nothing too seriously. I can’t be sure.
This project became special when I was in the middle of it. Because, conveniently, my residence permit expired. With my dad, I had to make a joint application to renew it. Gathering thousands of pages of documents, including tax records, criminal records showing that we have been only victims of phone thief, and a billion other things that the Government already has.
When we went to the application centre, we had to wait in a room for an hour, which was followed by a self-check-in in which a computer took pictures of us and our passports to prove that we were really us.
And then this was followed by an actual person checking us in – after another hour of waiting – taking our pictures, and pictures of our passports. Stuff we have already done. Why, you might ask. Because, apparently, we were smiling at the pictures we took at self-check-in!
If this report can contribute to no one else getting pictured for the second time because they were happy in the first one, I will count it as a success! That’s why it’s so special…
I don’t want to go through the whole report here and turn this into a lecture. So let me summarise the story in four principles only. Four principles that I argue policymakers should follow to design immigration systems fit for this age.
The first one, competitiveness.
The transformation of the economy, the rise of big cities and the service sector, and the change this triggered in the world of work made talent more valuable than ever. Professions like artificial intelligence developers or deep tech researchers weren’t familiar to anyone just a decade ago. Normal professionals of today like software engineers were seen as superhero-like individuals early in my lifetime, which was just a couple of years ago.
However, interestingly enough, many developments that came with these, from the accessibility of education to self-learning capabilities, also made skills and talent spread all over the world.
Talented people are now sought after by every country that wants to innovate and grow.
This means that the talent race is more fierce than ever. Countries aren’t only competing with rivals but also allies. Canada has been offering easy visa options to skilled foreign workers in the US, advertising them in Silicon Valley.
It’s not a coincidence. Economic growth in many Western countries has been exceptionally slow since 2008; almost stagnating in the UK. This also coincided with a time when innovation became something we talked more about but practised less. To innovate, countries need potential innovators – and they are racing to get them.
In this environment, offering a few visa schemes cannot put countries ahead of the game; that’s only the starting point. That’s why investing in further capabilities – such as easing access to capital or technological infrastructure and easier routes to permanent residency – will differentiate some countries from others. For instance, Israel has been offering lab spaces to entrepreneur migrants meanwhile New Zealand provides them direct connection to local investors.
Competition by nature requires moving things further. The more creative the offer, the better for the country.
Secondly, proactivity.
Until now, migration policies have been based on building visa schemes to simply let people arrive. In this competitive environment, governments should be going to the builders first – let them be entrepreneurs or STEM researchers – rather than waiting for them to come.
That’s why building bureaucratic capabilities to recognise and recruit international talent will be essential going forward.
This is actually nothing new. The US actively recruited engineers and scientists from Europe after the Second World War with Operation Paperclip. Some of them went on to lead America’s space program. There is no reason for policymakers not to actively look out for STEM talent, chipmakers, AI researchers or other individuals with strategic skills and offer them easy migration paths.
Thirdly, flexibility.
Static migration schemes of the past restricted skilled workers to their employers by linking their visas directly to them. This restrains talented people’s career prospects.
Standard procedures such as migration caps and sponsorship requirements disincentivise employers to hire entrepreneurial talent, make emigration harder for entrepreneurial individuals and work against innovative startups and scaleups.
Most of the talent countries need are actually already within them. They come as students. They come as professionals. But, for instance, the UK lost 83% of students who graduated in 2016 five years after their schools ended. Only 5% of them have workers' visas today. When it comes to professionals, they arrive here to work for big firms and their visa schemes don’t allow them to establish something of their own.
The lack of flexibility is the main reason why these talented individuals are underutilised. That’s why we propose that international graduates – at least of top schools – shouldn’t require sponsorships to work in the UK and they should be given an easy path to permanent residency. To be even more compelling, why not give permanent residencies to advanced STEM Master’s graduates or PhD students? For professionals, their visas should be flexible enough for them to work at startups or establish one of their own.
To achieve bold aims, like becoming a science superpower, the UK should match bold rhetoric with bold policies. Otherwise, they’ll stay as aims.
Lastly, holism.
This connects all the other dots.
Even though tailored visa policies for entrepreneurs or students can attract talented individuals, policymakers should see migration from a holistic perspective.
In the end, migrants’ journeys evolve over time: students turn into STEM researchers, STEM professionals turn their research into companies and high-skilled professionals build innovative businesses. Innovation does not come from a single source and nobody should expect it to.
That’s why the world’s most pro-innovation visa system isn’t the one attracting any of the mentioned sub-groups of immigrants – it’s the one giving opportunities to all of them.
Let me go back to my own story to tie things up.
Being an immigrant in this country is truly great. The most discriminative comment I received from anybody is that I don’t look Turkish. Which, objectively, is a statement of fact not discrimination.
And here I am, speaking at the Mother of all Parliaments about the policies my host country should implement to welcome more people like me. I really can’t complain.
Immigration is a story about opportunities.
We need more of those stories and Passport to Progress is our contribution to how.