The Provost and the Vice Provost for Academic Personnel and Faculty (APF) have announced a pilot program to expand UW visa sponsorship of outstanding international faculty. Effective September 1, 2025, the International Scholars Operations (ISO) team will work with the UW Attorney General’s Office and outside immigration counsel to support requests for O-1 (Extraordinary Ability), EB-1B (Outstanding Researcher/Professor), and H-1B Conrad waiver sponsorship for new or ongoing faculty. While some of these cases will be prepared by outside counsel with minimal involvement by ISO, units may still choose to request sponsorship through ISO, as ISO workload allows.
This pilot program reflects long-standing requests from around campus for more support for these visa types. Units should note that they will still be responsible for related fees, and that outside counsel generally bill more for these case types than ISO does. More guidance on these visa types and processes (including how processing through ISO and outside counsel will differ) will be published on the ISO website shortly.
ISO anticipates that this program will significantly alleviate hiring and retention difficulties for outstanding international faculty, and we’re excited to better meet this need. Please send any questions or feedback you have about this pilot program to acadvisa@uw.edu.