Download the invitation letter and agenda here [PDF]

SAR Press Release:

Academic Freedom Meeting to be held in London, November 11
SAR-PR-05-10-10

New York -- The Scholars at Risk Network (SAR) and the Council for Assisting Refugee Academics (CARA) will convene a meeting on academic freedom on November 11, 2005 at the UK Universities' offices in London.

The meeting will bring together UK university representatives to explore ways to promote academic freedom and to assist persecuted academics forced to flee their home countries and rebuild their lives and careers abroad.

"Professors, researchers and public intellectuals worldwide face threats including surveillance, intimidation, arrest and in the worst cases, torture and death because they are viewed as threatening to authoritarian regimes and groups," says Robert Quinn, director of the Scholars at Risk Network.

"Higher education institutions and faculty can play a key role in preventing these attacks and protecting individual scholars and scholarly communities," adds Quinn.

SAR and CARA seek to build a network of universities and colleges in the UK working to strengthen respect for academic freedom worldwide and to provide critical assistance to academics forced to flee their country.

"We invite all interested university faculty and administrators to join us at the November 11th meeting to learn more about these important issues and discuss ways UK universities and faculty can provide leadership in the promotion of academic freedom worldwide," says Quinn.

Scholars at Risk is a growing international network of more than 100 universities and colleges which works to promote academic freedom and assist scholars experiencing threats in their home countries, primarily by arranging temporary positions for these individuals at network universities and colleges. SAR partners with the Institute of International Education's Scholar Rescue Fund which provides grants for threatened scholars from any discipline and any country. For more information, visit http://scholarsatrisk.nyu.edu.

CARA, based at London South Bank University has been working with refugee academics in UK since 1933. Of CARA's former grantees, eighteen became Nobel Laureates, sixteen received knighthoods, seventy-one were made Fellows or Foreign Members of the Royal Society, and fifty were named Fellows or Corresponding Fellows of the British Academy. For more information, visit www.academic-refugees.org.

SAR and CARA are grateful for the support of the Institute of International Education, the British Academy, the Royal Society and Universities UK. Participants at this event include John Ashworth, President of CARA; Jacqueline Bhahba, Director of Harvard University's Committee on Human Rights Studies; Robert Quinn, Director of the Scholars at Risk Network and Executive Director of the IIE Scholar Rescue Fund; and John Akker, Executive Secretary of CARA. Foreign scholars assisted by SAR and CARA will also participate.

The meeting will be held on November 11 from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm at Universities UK, Woburn House, 20 Tavistock Square, London, WC1H 9HQ. Media and interested attendees should contact Scholars at Risk's New York office at +212-998-2179 or CARA's London office at 020 7021 0880 in advance of the meeting.