UK international students: ineligible for GSoC?

[Ankur Sinha]

Hi all,

We have a candidate that has applied in this round and they are on a
student visa here in the UK. Their visa says they cannot:

- claim public funds (benefits) and pensions
- work in certain jobs, for example as a professional sportsperson or sports coach
- be self-employed
- study at an academy or a local authority-funded school (also known as a maintained school)

(from: https://www.gov.uk/student-visa)

Have any students/mentors/org-admins had any issues with participation
in GSoC related to UK student visas? Have any of you any guidance from
universities or other sources if international students in the UK are
eligible for GSoC, for example? We know that GSoC isn't a job, so that
part is fine, but it's unclear if it's classified as "self employment".

The issue here is that all international students, even those from the
EU, are on student visas in the UK now. So, if this counts as "self
employment", no international students in the UK are eligible for GSoC
at all, which doesn't sound right to me.

--
Thanks,
Regards,
Ankur Sinha (He / Him / His) | https://ankursinha.in
Research Fellow at the Silver Lab, University College London | http://silverlab.org/
Free/Open source community volunteer at the NeuroFedora project | https://neuro.fedoraproject.org
Time zone: Europe/London

[Stephanie Taylor]

 

We have a candidate that has applied in this round and they are on a
student visa here in the UK. Their visa says they cannot:

- claim public funds (benefits) and pensions
- work in certain jobs, for example as a professional sportsperson or sports coach
- be self-employed
- study at an academy or a local authority-funded school (also known as a maintained school)

(from: https://www.gov.uk/student-visa)

Have any students/mentors/org-admins had any issues with participation
in GSoC related to UK student visas? Have any of you any guidance from
universities or other sources if international students in the UK are
eligible for GSoC, for example? We know that GSoC isn't a job, so that
part is fine, but it's unclear if it's classified as "self employment".

This is something the person should be asking of their student advisor or whoever helps students with visa situations at their university as it is legal advice and people on this list can't give legal advice. 

 

The issue here is that all international students, even those from the
EU, are on student visas in the UK now. So, if this counts as "self
employment", no international students in the UK are eligible for GSoC
at all, which doesn't sound right to me.

--
Thanks,
Regards,
Ankur Sinha (He / Him / His) | https://ankursinha.in
Research Fellow at the Silver Lab, University College London | http://silverlab.org/
Free/Open source community volunteer at the NeuroFedora project | https://neuro.fedoraproject.org
Time zone: Europe/London

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[Ankur Sinha]

On Mon, Apr 22, 2024 11:06:53 -0700, Stephanie Taylor wrote:
>  
> <snip>

>
> Have any students/mentors/org-admins had any issues with participation
> in GSoC related to UK student visas? Have any of you any guidance from
> universities or other sources if international students in the UK are
> eligible for GSoC, for example? We know that GSoC isn't a job, so that
> part is fine, but it's unclear if it's classified as "self employment".
>
>
> This is something the person should be asking of their student advisor or
> whoever helps students with visa situations at their university as it is legal
> advice and people on this list can't give legal advice. 

I am not asking for legal advice. I'm merely asking if others have
experienced similar issues. A "yes, we ran into this too" or "no, it
didn't come up" will suffice.

FWIW, universities don't always give legal advice either---they don't
have to, and sometimes they simply can't because they don't know.

[Kaushik Chintam]

I have the same issue, but I don't know what the outcome would be, I am thinking the only option would be to "if" and that's a big if. If gsoc is considered as a job then the 20 hour part time should work out. That's the only option I can see. I asked my university careers team, and they said they cannot help or assist with any hours extension, other than the student status letter. But GSoc can be considered as a voluntership out of the pool, which also comes under the 20 hour work time. For context I study in the UK as an international student. 

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[Utsav Rai]

As per the GSoc FAQs - https://developers.google.com/open-source/gsoc/faq#is_gsoc_considered_an_internship_a_job_or_any_form_of_employment. GSoC is an activity that a participant performs as an independent developer for which they are paid a stipend. Participants are not employed by, working at, or for, Google. Thus, it should not be a problem for UK students holding student visas, in my opinion. Please correct me If I am wrong. 

[Ankur Sinha]

On Thu, May 02, 2024 08:20:53 GMT, Utsav Rai wrote:
> As per the GSoc FAQs - https://developers.google.com/open-source/gsoc/faq#
> is_gsoc_considered_an_internship_a_job_or_any_form_of_employment. GSoC is an
> activity that a participant performs as an independent developer for which they
> are paid a stipend. Participants are not employed by, working at, or for,
> Google. Thus, it should not be a problem for UK students holding student visas,
> in my opinion. Please correct me If I am wrong. 

It is not, unfortunately, as simple as that. While a student is not
employed by Google, GSoC may still count as "self employment" for tax
purposes, which international students are not permitted to undertake.
Confirmation on whether it counts as "self employment" seems to be hard
to obtain though.

> ad0ef058-c487-401f-9140-04da1c4b68f7n%40googlegroups.com.

--
Thanks,
Regards,
Ankur Sinha (He / Him / His) | https://ankursinha.in

Time zone: Europe/London