At a press briefing on Friday January 9th, Sweden's Migration Minister Johan Forssell gave an update on the long-promised bill intended to simplify rules for foreign researchers and PhD students by including it, in his presentation, in a list of new laws to be pushed through over the next few months.
"We know that Sweden is very good at attracting researchers and PhD students, but the problem is that many of them – too many – choose to leave Sweden after they have been here and done research. It's bad for our country and reduces our growth," he said at the press conference.
One of the problems the bill seeks to solve is the the way researchers are barred from leaving Sweden, either for study or to visit friends and family, as they wait – often for an indeterminate amount of time – for their permits to be renewed.
This has meant many have had to choose between staying in Sweden and attending important family events or career opportunities, such as academic conferences, in other countries.
At the press conference on January 9th, Forssell acknowledged that this situation has resulted in Sweden losing out on international talent.
The government has waited more than a year to push the bill forward, with a government inquiry proposing making researchers eligible for reentry visas, among other solutions, as long ago as December 2024.
According to the presentation slide, the bill to bring in the simplified rules for researchers and doctoral students will be published in March of this year, meaning it will be ready to submit to parliament for a vote before the summer.
The main purpose of the press conference was to present immigration statistics for 2025, which showed a 30 percent drop in asylum applications from the previous year.
Comments (2)