The Council for At-Risk Academics (Cara), a UK-based charity founded in 1933 to rescue academics at risk from persecution, violence, and conflict, has issued a critical warning, reporting a major surge in applications from academics in need of urgent support and rescue.
In the past three academic years alone (2021/22-2023/24), the long-established charity has received over 2,000 requests for help from at-risk academics urgently seeking temporary refuge in the UK. This represents nearly a 400% increase in demand for assistance, compared to the previous three academic years (2018/19-2020/21), and is the highest level the charity has recorded since its foundation in the 1930s as a rescue mission for academics in Germany under threat from the Nazis.
The charity, which provides temporary safe haven for scholars in the UK, has pinned the recent surge in demand on the proliferation and escalation of conflicts around the world, including in Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan, as well as the Taliban’s seizure of power in Afghanistan.
Academics are routinely targeted by authoritarian governments and extremist groups who view free thinking and freedom of expression as a threat.
Operating for nearly a century, Cara supports scholars fleeing violence, repression and threats to intellectual and individual freedom. The charity facilitates their escape, often along with that of their families, using its long experience and extensive network of contacts to navigate security, logistical, geographical, travel and visa challenges. Cara helps the scholars find top academic placements around the UK, putting together a package of funding support and practical arrangements, including visas sponsored by the host universities, to enable them to continue their work in safety.
The rescue missions can take six months to coordinate from start to finish and require substantial investment from the charity and partner universities.
In 2023 Cara supported over 220 active fellows from different countries in placements at a wide range of UK universities, with generous support from university hosts. Numbers seem likely to be higher still in 2024, with the biggest number of applications by the mid-year coming from Palestine, Afghanistan, Sudan and Syria, with smaller numbers from over a dozen other countries.
[The following quotes are anonymised for these Cara Fellows’ safety, and the safety of their family and friends who remain in the nations they have fled.]
“The first days of the Russia’s full-scale invasion of my home country of Ukraine were the most shocking days of my life. Like many citizens of Kyiv, I spent my nights in a bomb shelter, and during the day I tried to get scarce food products, periodically hiding in the subway during air raids. Unsurprisingly, the Institute where I worked as a cancer researcher suspended all work … This was the moment when I truly realized how important and valuable Cara is … I am eternally grateful to all the people who have made it possible for me to be safe and have given me the opportunity to continue doing research, the work that I have always loved.” (Cara Fellow from Ukraine)
“I was the luckiest person that I found Cara, I was a lecturer at university and had a good reputation in our community and dozens of students and friends but suddenly Taliban took over my country and I lost all of them. I was hopeless, but then I found Cara … When I reached the UK, I breathed, I saw, and I felt real freedom in my life for the first time … Now I am not afraid of being judged for what I wear or for expressing my ideas, I am not leaving my home thinking that I might not make it back as an explosion might happen. I am feeling secure here, and it is all because of the Cara organisation.” (Cara Fellow from Afghanistan)
“I was happy with my life before 2011, but when the war started, I was scared of many things such as arbitrary detention, killing, losing a member of my family or even my whole family. Every day I had to face these terrible challenges … My friend who was living in Manchester advised me to contact an organisation called ‘Cara’. I did not have any idea what Cara was, this was the first time I had heard their name … I think Cara was for us like a gift from God. I am so grateful to Cara, as it is the direct reason for me and my family’s safe presence here in the UK … I will never forget the name ‘Cara’ as long as I live.” (Cara Fellow from Syria
But some academics are not so fortunate. Many of the 2,000 academics requesting Cara’s support over the past three years have been unable to escape their home countries as they face numerous obstacles such as closed visa or passport offices or are missing crucial documents for themselves or for family members which have been lost or destroyed amid the destruction in the academics’ home countries.
Stephen Wordsworth, Executive Director of Cara, commented: “Conflicts, authoritarianism and intolerance around the world are making it increasingly hard for academics in many countries to continue their work, or even to exist. Repressive governments and extremist groups are united in their determination to brook no challenge, and academics, like journalists, are high on their list of those who must be controlled or silenced – one way or another. In some countries, such as Iran or Afghanistan, female academics are particularly vulnerable.
“We are now at a critical juncture. We have received more pleas for help in the last three years than at any time since we were founded in the 1930s – a stark reminder of history’s darkest moments. Crisis is being piled upon crisis, forcing ever greater numbers of university researchers and teachers to seek to flee to safety.
“Fortunately, with the help of our many UK university and research institute partners, and of our institutional and individual supporters, we are able to get many of them to safety, so they can continue their work and share their skills and experience with their new hosts. By protecting those at great risk and making it possible for them to return home again when it is safe to do so, we not only preserve the sanctity of education, we also help to lay the groundwork for a better future for all. But there are always more who need help. And to help them, we need to raise more funds.”
This September, following a successful first event in June at the University of Chester, Cara will hold a series of awareness and fundraising events at leading universities across the UK. These will celebrate the achievements of academics in its Fellowship Programme and encourage the academic community to engage with Cara to help more of their colleagues who are in danger.
Since its foundation, 16 people rescued by Cara have won Nobel Prizes, underscoring the importance of Cara’s work. Albert Einstein took part in a major fundraising event at the Albert Hall in October 1933, noting in his speech that without academic freedom “there would have been no Shakespeare, no Goethe, no Newton, no Faraday, no Pasteur and no Lister […] most people would lead a dull life of slavery.”
To find out more about Cara or to donate, please visit: https://www.cara.ngo/