Record numbers of refugee students and academics, driven by the crises in the Middle East and beyond, are reaching out to Europe. Many European institutions are trying their best to respond to the crisis, including creating new opportunities for displaced academics and students, but often these efforts are disconnected, hard for candidates to access, and inadequately informed by history and best practice. This strategic partnership project will capitalize on these efforts and good intentions, to increase their effectiveness, to increase the number of individuals assisted, and to inspire more institutions to do their part.The project is innovative in its efforts to link the urgent responses of European universities to the current refugee crisis to longer term efforts to promote academic freedom. Alongside increasing the European universities’ capacity to support those who were forced to flee, there is an opportunity for European universities to work together with refugees and threatened academics to look to the longer-term. This project will raise greater awareness of the importance of academic freedom to a healthy higher education sector, the consequences for society at large when such freedom is repressed, and the steps we can take as a sector, especially in all our international education partnerships, to protect higher education values. The objectives of the proposed strategic partnership are to improve the capacity of European universities to assist refugees and threatened academics and to promote greater respect for academic freedom and greater protection for higher education values in all international higher education partnerships.The target groups for the project will include refugees with higher education and threatened academics, as well as academic and administrative staff at universities across Europe and around the world, especially (a) those with a role in welcoming refugees and threatened academics to campus and (b) those involved in developing international higher education partnerships. Additional target groups of the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) will include students, governments, media, and civil society across Europe and around the world, including in areas where academic freedom is under threat. More than 10 000 participants is expected.The project activities include development and testing of a staff training curriculum combining an intensive module on the understanding, promotion and protection of academic freedom and other core university values with a very practical staff training on how to host refugees and threatened academics on campus. The project will also produce a MOOC on the understanding and importance of academic freedom and other higher education core values for the development of society at large. Finally the project will produce an electronic handbook on putting higher education values into practice in international partnerships targeted at international education practitioners involved in developing international partnerships around the world. The project results will be shared with a wider audience through various media channels, networks and through three multiplier events in Oslo, Ljubljana and Brussels.The project will draw on experiences and expertise already existing in the partner networks and new knowledge produced based on needs communicated from HE institutions and from refugees and threatened academics already hosted in Europe. Refugees and threatened academics within the SAR network will themselves contribute to developing the outputs of the project. The UiO experts on online learning will work closely with SAR experts, project partners and refugee academics to adjust content to the online learning format. The production of the e-handbook will be a flexible process drawing from experiences and ideas from the earlier project phases and needs of staff involved in international partnerships.The project will increase the number of opportunities for refugees and threatened academics at European universities, and improve the quality of support for those already in place. The project will connect urgent actions on behalf of refugees to efforts to engage a larger public in discussions about academic freedom through publications and online learning. In the short and long term the project will lead to greater European support for refugees and threatened academics, enabling them to continue their careers and create and maintain personal and professional networks. In so doing, the project will improve the capacity of refugee academics to help rebuild the home region once conflict has subsided. It is hoped that the project will contribute to a vision of the displaced academics not as a burden but as welcome contributors to communities, recognized for their talents and voices and respected members of the higher education sector; as well as to an increased understanding of the crucial importance of protecting higher education values everywhere.
The Academic Refuge project improved the capacity of European universities to assist refugees and threatened academics, through linking the urgent responses of European universities to the “refugee crisis” to the pressing need for broader efforts to promote academic freedom. The project was launched in 2016 at a time when record numbers of refugee students and academics were reaching out to Europe. Through staff training, improved networking and the production of guidance materials, the project worked to increase the effectiveness of institutional responses to the crisis, to increase the number of individuals assisted and to inspire more institutions to do their part. Alongside increasing the capacity of European universities to support those who were forced to flee, the project highlighted the importance for European universities to work together with refugees and threatened academics to look to the longer-term. Through workshops, publications and a free online course, Academic Refuge promoted greater awareness of the importance of academic freedom to a healthy higher education sector, the consequences for society at large when such freedom is repressed, and the steps we can take as a sector to protect higher education values. The project drew on experience and expertise existing in the partner networks, and drew on new knowledge produced in the project based on the needs communicated by higher education institutions and by refugees and threatened academics hosted at European universities. The project included 4 partners and 4 associate partners. The partners included 2 large comprehensive universities; the University of Oslo and the University of Ljubljana, and two university networks; the Scholars at Risk network (510 members in 39 countries) and the UNICA Network of Universities from the Capitals of Europe (51 members). The associate partners included two higher education associations; The European University Association (EUA, 850 members across 47 countries) and the European Association for International Education (EAIE- ca 3,000 individual members), and two media partners; University World News and Al Fanar Media. In addition, Academic Refuge project cooperated with other EU-funded projects such as SUCRE and GREET through participation in events, sharing ideas and dissemination of project results. For the massive open online course produced, Academic Refuge cooperated with the learning platform Futurelearn, where the MOOC is available and open to all. The primary target group for the project included refugees and threatened academics in Europe. The secondary target group included academic and administrative university staff in Europe and around the world, especially those with (a) a role in welcoming refugees and threatened academics to campus and (b) involved in developing international higher education partnerships. More specifically Academic Refuge project activities included: - Development and implementation of a staff training on ‘Welcoming Refugees and Threatened Academics to European Campuses’. - Staff training week with 55 participants - Development and implementation of a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on academic freedom and higher education values - Development of an electronic handbook on putting higher education values into practice (June 2019): Promoting Higher Education Values; Perspectives from the Field (PDF) - Three multiplier events with a total of 400 participants - Numerous dissemination activities and products Project activities reached thousands of people through face-to-face and online activities. The staff training curriculum provided users with greater expertise and deeper understanding of good practices for welcoming threatened academics and refugees to campus. Participants in the staff training and the MOOC, increased their understanding of the importance of core values in higher education, and how these can be strengthened and developed. Participants reported that they continue to network and develop new activities based on their participation in project activities. Resources developed with support from the Erasmus+ are available on partner websites and will continue to be used in training activities well beyond the project lifetime. Project impact is already observed, but the full impact will be realized in the years to come. Within the global migration “crisis”, the Academic Refuge project saw an academic crisis of two dimensions. In the immediate time frame, a generation of talent is at risk of being lost. Secondly, each scholar and student that we lose now, deepens the challenge of restoring a conflict region when the violence eventually subsides. By increasing the capacity to help refugees and threatened academics to continue their work in safety, this project increased their opportunities to keep working and keep advancing their scholarship. Hopefully, the project has planted seeds of capacity and hope for restoring the war-torn regions in the years to come.