IIE-SRF alumnus Alfred Brownell, an environmental and human rights activist, fled his native Liberia after his successful campaign against a foreign palm oil plantation led to death threats and intimidation. Today, he hopes to return after being named one of this year’s winners of the Goldman environmental prize. Brownell is the inaugural occupant of the IIE-SRF Beau Biden Chair.
Canada has played a major role in acting as a safe haven for at-risk academics. As a partner of the Institute of International Education’s Scholar Rescue Fund (SRF), Canada has enabled almost 30 professors, researchers and scientists to come to universities across Canada to continue their work.
Since the Scholar Rescue Fund first enlisted the help of AAAS On-call Scientists in 2015, volunteers from a range of scientific disciplines have fulfilled 50 requests to review a scholar's work. “The feedback that we get from scientists in the program can really be integral to helping us understand a scholar's background," says IIE-SRF assistant director Emily Borzcik.
The Institute of International Education (IIE) celebrated its 100-year anniversary with its 2019 summit at the Grand Hyatt in New York City, a ceremonial lighting of the Empire State Building, and by recognizing The Right Honourable Gordon Brown with the Henry Kaufman Prize.
100 years of the Institute of International Education, a true “Treasure of New York.”
In honor of IIE's Centennial celebration, IIE president and CEO Allan E. Goodman spoke with MetroFocus about IIE's long legacy of scholar rescue.
This year for the first time, IIE-SRF is sharing data publicly about the accomplishments of the range of people it has steered into new lives. In 2018, these rescued refugees reported among them 191 books and articles published, 217 lectures or presentations delivered and 105 students’ studies supervised by them in numerous institutions.
There is a growing recognition of the need for the international scientific community to address the number of threatened, displaced and refugee scientists worldwide, according to a special session organized by the International Science Council (ISC), The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) and the InterAcademy Partnership (IAP) at the 2018 World Social Science Forum [7] in Fukuoka, Japan.
On September 18th, 2018, IIE and Finland's EDUFI expanded their partnership to support displaced scholars, university students, and artists through IIE-SRF, IIE PEER, and the Artist Protection Fund.
The ongoing war in Yemen has created the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. With widespread violence, disease, hunger, and instability, education and scientific research have become practically unattainable. In short, Yemen is facing a higher education emergency.
Florida State University is implementing some important changes to enhance the Honors Program this fall. The program has named a new director and hired three new specialized honors faculty members, including IIE-SRF alumnus Azat Gundogan, a scholar of sociology from Turkey.
Links
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/apr/29/lawyer-forced-to-flee-liberia-hopes-to-return-after-goldman-prize-win-alfred-brownell-defend-environment?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Facebook&fbclid=IwAR12wtBtNn1SYIU6Euf4Jc2O4HEbK1nLhixrao40plehl6zm6U7LCRAPmQg
[2] https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/education/article-canada-playing-major-role-as-safe-haven-for-at-risk-academics-from/
[3] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/363/6434/1409.full
[4] https://www.iie.org/Why-IIE/Announcements/2019/02/2019-02-19-IIE-Centennial-Former-British-Prime-Minister-Gordon-Brown-Receives-Henry-Kaufman-Prize
[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxoBbJ5g0v8
[6] https://www.passblue.com/2018/11/25/where-refugee-scholars-artists-and-activists-find-safety-and-thrive/
[7] http://www.wssf2018.org/wssf.html
[8] https://bit.ly/2CNgdVl
[9] https://www.iie.org/Why-IIE/Announcements/2018-10-03-IIE-and-EDUFI-Sign-Agreement
[10] https://www.iie.org/en/Learn/Blog/2018/09/2018-September-7-IIE-SRFs-Growing-Effort-to-Support-Yemeni-Scholars
[11] https://news.fsu.edu/news/university-news/2018/08/21/fsu-unveils-enhanced-honors-program/
[12] https://scholarrescuefund.org/news/in-the-news
[13] https://scholarrescuefund.org/news/in-the-news?page=2