Researchers fleeing persecution are being supported into skilled posts in industry, writes Peter McGuire

A piece by Peter McGuire for Maynooth University covering Scholars at Risk and the Inspireurope project.

The shelling hit Damascus in 2012. Profesor Souad Odeh, a lecturer in information science, knew she had to escape the escalating Syrian civil war. She made her way to France, and now works in Lyon for FI Group, a multinational firm specialising in the management of Research & Development tax reliefs and grants.

In 2017, Professor Jeff Wilkesman, a biochemist, watched on in horror and disbelief as the military stormed the grounds of his campus, Universidad de Carabobo in Valencia, Venezuela. A few months later, he and his wife, also a biochemist, relocated to Mannheim. He now works at the Institute of Biological Process Engineering in Mannheim, Germany.

Over the past year, Scholars at Risk (SAR), an international network of over 540 institutions across 40 countries working to protect scholars and promote academic freedom, reported on 341 attacks on higher education and scholars, including 124 scholars who were killed, attacked or disappeared.

Read more here.