Strategic Partnership to Promote Core Academic Values and Welcome Refugees and Threatened Academics to European Campuses Erasmus Project

Project Title

Strategic Partnership to Promote Core Academic Values and Welcome Refugees and Threatened Academics to European Campuses

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for higher education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2016

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Integration of refugees; Post-conflict/post-disaster rehabilitation; International cooperation, international relations, development cooperation

Project Summary

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.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 300856,86 Eur

Project Coordinator

UNIVERSITETET I OSLO & Country: NO

Project Partners

• UNIVERZA V LJUBLJANI
• Scholars at Risk, Inc.
• RESEAU DES UNIVERSITES DES CAPITALES DE L’EUROPE