Only HKU included in UK’s High Potential Individual visa scheme this year

Only the University of Hong Kong is included in this year’s High Potential Individual (HPI) visa scheme rolled out by the UK to attract overseas talent, according to the updated list of eligible universities. 

Both the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) are not on this year’s list. 

They were respectively on the list from 2021 to 2022, and from 2018 to 2019. 

The applicants must be awarded a qualification in the last five years by a university that appears in world’s top 50 on two or all three ranking lists – the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, the QS World University Rankings, and the Academic Ranking of World Universities. 

This year’s list sees 19 universities from the US, including Caltech, Cornell, Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Stanford and Yale. 

The five from China are Fudan University, Peking University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Tsinghua University and Zhejiang University. 

The visa usually grants the applicants permission to stay in the UK for two years and those with a PhD or other doctoral qualifications may be granted a three-year stay. 

The UK government’s website says applicants should pay £210 (~HK$2,057) for a qualification check, £822 (~HK$8,015) for the application, £1,248 (~HK$12,169) for a two-year healthcare surcharge, and have £1,270 in personal saving. 

That means applicants should prepare at least £3,750 (~HK$36,566) when applying for the scheme. 

Applicants also need to pass a criminal record screening and prove their knowledge of English reaches B1 level of the IELTS. 

Yet, applicants can apply for the scheme without having any job offer in the UK and their partner and children can apply to join the scheme as dependents.