Tier 5 - GAE: PhD student / academic visit

Greetings,

I am a PhD student at a university in Brazil (started in 2015) and I have a grant/scholarship to do an academic visit (not as student, I will no take any courses) of 9 months at the University of Manchester. I already talked to the professor which will host me there and the application procedure has already started. However, I still do not know whether I should apply for a Tier 5 - GAE visa (as sponsored scholar) or for an Academic Visitor visa, since I found a lot of conflicting or unclear information.

In particular, I am worried about what can be considered "highly qualified" requirements for Academic Visitor and if the purpose of my academic visit complies more closely to the Tier 5 - GAE or Academic Visitor rules.

More information:

- I started my PhD in 2015 and should finish it some months after I return to Brazil in 2019.
- My research project was approved by a Brazilian research agency (FAPESP), which will pay me monthly during the visit (grant/scholarship).
- The amount I will receive meets the National Minimum Wage.
- I am going as a visiting researcher/student, hence I will not need to pay tuition fees.
- The research project does not coincide with my PhD thesis, but it is closely related to it.
- Directly, the project only involves my supervisor in Brazil, my supervisor in Manchester and me (we are the only individuals listed on the application for the scholarship).

Thanks in advance,

Ricardo.

Hi

Did you manage to find out which route you will be following or have followed. A friend is in similar sort of circumstances but applying from Pakistan and going through the same sort of confusion.

Any advice or anythings we should keep an eye on.

Thanks

Hi,

In the end, following the sponsor's advice (albeit with a degree of uncertainty) I applied for a Tier 5 visa.
I am now at the UK doing what was intended to do. However, I think it would also have been possible to go with an Academic Visitor visa.

Probably the most important thing to do is check with your sponsor, as it should be able to indicate the best of the two routes based on previous experiences. Also, since the sponsor is responsible by the sponsorship letter and the CoS (in the case of Tier 5 visa), it is a good idea to ask them under which conditions they provide those.

In my case, I had to decide using information (sometimes contradictory) gathered from the UKVI, departments at my own university and some immigration advisers (which reluctantly gave me some tips). Furthermore, it seemed to me that the Academic Visitor route is more adequate for PhD holders.

Best regards and good luck.

Many thanks. Really appreciate it.