“HOW CAN I HELP?” Over the past year, this simple question has been asked thousands of times by members of higher education communities around the world. In those few words, they are not only expressing concern for threatened scholars, students, and activists—they are also echoing the call that launched our network. Over the past few months, many were asking about colleagues in Afghanistan. For the better part of twenty years, they have fought for a new, forward-looking, knowledge-based Afghanistan. Many hundreds of them traveled abroad to seek an education, and returned to their homeland, dedicated to openness and tolerance. These are not the values of the Taliban, so their lives are now at risk. We are grateful to the many Scholars at Risk members and partners around the world who are working with us to offer assistance to as many Afghan colleagues as possible. 

Others have asked the same question—“How can we help?”—about colleagues in Yemen, Myanmar, Belarus, Hong Kong, and a host of other countries where authoritarian, dictatorial, and illiberal governments have been actively working to restrict academic freedom. These governments target scholars and students, censor teaching and scholarship, and punish critical dissent because they fear what the university
in its fullest sense represents: freedom to think, question, and share ideas.

Our network was launched to respond to such threats, and this year especially we have seen an extraordinary outpouring of support from people wanting to make a difference, people who truly believe that academic freedom is one of our most cherished values. This support has been extraordinary, but not surprising, as we have come to expect extraordinary kindness and efforts from the campuses, administrators, staff, faculties, and individuals who have voluntarily joined in our network and collective mission. 

The challenges we faced this year are many, and ongoing, but our network was built for these challenges. Our founding charter set out to establish: “a permanent network of universities, colleges, and centers of research, study, and teaching…dedicated to protecting the fundamental human rights of scholars and others engaged in the community of ideas; …to assisting scholars facing the most grave threats to their being and to their profession; …and to raising respect for academic freedom, higher education, scholarship, and the free exchange of ideas.” Many thanks to each of our member institutions, to our funding partners, and supporters, without whom that permanent network—our network—would not exist.

I am pleased to share with you a summary of the incredible work that we have accomplished together over this past year, and look forward to doing even more together in the years ahead.

ROB QUINN

Scholars at Risk (SAR) is an international network of institutions, associations, and individuals whose collective mission is to protect scholars and promote academic freedom.

The climate in which SAR fulfills its mission is increasingly difficult, placing growing demands on our services. Populist and authoritarian regimes on the rise are actively working to restrict academic freedom, while ongoing refugee crises, armed conflicts, and climate disasters contribute to record numbers of scholars seeking help, with over 800 requests under review or receiving services.

The higher education community is responding. Our global network has grown to include:

• 560+ universities, colleges, and associations in 42+ countries
• 14 national sections, with several more forming
• 14 partner networks with leading higher education networks that help extend the reach of SAR activities to every region of the world

This means more opportunities to help scholars, raise awareness, and demand greater protection for universities, scholars, students, and academic freedom. 

Dr. Prosper Maguchu, a visiting Associate Professor at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, in conversation with the former President of the University of College Cork, Professor Patrick O’Shea, during the SAR/Vivian G. Prins Speaker tour of the island of Ireland in February 2020.

SAR Sections, Partners & Hubs

The SAR network is increasingly organized into national sections—geographic groupings of higher education institutions organized for the specific purpose of participating
in SAR-related activities. 

These are joined by partner networks—formal associations between SAR and pre-existing networks of higher education institutions. All of these are represented through SAR’s International Advisory Committee (IAC), which is the voice of the network membership to SAR’s governing board. The IAC embeds an international perspective into SAR’s structure and governance and provides a forum and communication channel for all involved. This allows for greater coordination of activities across regions, more sharing of best practices leading to improved support for scholars, and more opportunities to advance academic freedom worldwide.

SAR Sections & Partner Networks

SAR’s advocacy work increases protection for at-risk scholars by documenting the global phenomenon of attacks on higher education communities and seeking implementation of additional protections for academic freedom.

Free to Think 2021, the annual report of SAR’s Academic Freedom Monitoring Project, documents 332 attacks on university communities in 65 countries. Volunteer monitors throughout SAR’s global network contribute by submitting data and by supporting advocacy around the report. Since 2011, SAR has documented 2,060 incidents involving 2,732 attacks on higher education in 122 countries. SAR-affiliated legal clinics increase monitoring coverage while training students on academic freedom and human rights. Students produce reports on specific incidents involving attacks on higher education and analyze country conditions relating to academic freedom. Over the last six years, students in 37 SAR clinics helped prepare academic freedom reports on Bahrain, Belarus, Colombia, Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Hungary, Iran, Israel, Thailand, Turkey, and Venezuela for submission to national and international human rights bodies.

This year’s report highlights violent attacks on higher education communities, wrongful prosecutions of scholars, pressures on student expression, and restrictions on travel, among other global pressures. The report features more than a dozen profiles of countries where SAR reported more than five incidents of attacks on higher education communities within the reporting year, including Afghanistan, Belarus, China, Hong Kong, Myanmar, and the United States.

Together with partners in the regions, SAR has helped launch academic freedom advocacy hubs in West Africa and in the Americas. These seek to cultivate regional collaboration on advocacy in support of issues relating to academic freedom and protecting scholars, students, and institutions from attack. 

With funds granted in 2021, the Americas hub—led by University of Monterrey, Mexico; University of Ottawa, Canada; and SAR—will raise awareness, build a sustainable network of experts at institutions throughout the hemisphere, and generate regional advocacy. As part of its initial work, the hub has been invited by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) to help develop regional networks and standards on academic freedom.

Students

Students participating in Student Advocacy Seminars play an increasingly important role in SAR’s advocacy work.

Seminar students develop research and leadership skills while advocating on behalf of scholars and students identified by SAR’s Scholars in Prison Project. Over the last seven years, students at 40 institutions in Bangladesh, Canada, Germany, Ghana, Italy, Kyrgyzstan, the Netherlands, Norway, the United Kingdom, and the United States helped SAR campaign for 20 imprisoned scholars and students from Bahrain, Belarus, China, Egypt, India, Iran, Nicaragua, Saudi Arabia, South Sudan, and the United Arab Emirates. Over that same period, SAR has seen the release or improvement in conditions of detention for the subjects of student advocacy campaigns from Iran, Nicaragua, Saudi Arabia, and South Sudan. 

Seminar participants put their advocacy skills into practice at SAR’s annual Student Advocacy Day. This year’s virtual Student Advocacy Day webinars featured training on avenues for government advocacy in the US and Europe, social media advocacy, the power of the student voice, and testimony from formerly imprisoned scholars and family members of imprisoned scholars. The webinars drew over 250 students from across the seminar program. In past years, more than 100 students and faculty met in person to exchange best practices in advocating for imprisoned scholars, discuss advocacy strategies with guest experts, and meet with elected officials. In early 2022, Student Advocacy Day sessions tailored to national and regional contexts will take place virtually and in hybrid format in Canada, Europe, and the United States. 

Key Actions
This year student actions have included social media campaigns, meetings with representatives in government, and virtual events, including:

• The publication a book of poetry, written in prison by wrongfully detained Professor G. N. Saibaba in India. Students at University of California, San Diego and University of California, Santa Barbara co-organized this effort, held a virtual book launch in June, and sent copies of the book to the Embassy and consulates of India to the United States.
• Creative awareness-raising by Ruhr-Universität Bochum students, who added to a botanical garden a plaque explaining the plight of imprisoned conservationist Niloufar Bayani and scientist Ahmadreza Djalali.
• An article by students at University of Padua raising awareness about the wrongful imprisonment of Dr. Ahmadreza Djalali and Patrick George Zaki.
• A petition to the Canadian Parliament, organized by University of British Columbia students, requesting that Parliament call for the release of Professor Ilham Tohti, an imprisoned Uyghur scholar.
• A motion tabled before UK Parliament—following outreach by University of Dundee students—in support of Patrick George Zaki, a University of Bologna student imprisoned in Egypt.
• Multiple media articles as a result of student outreach and awareness campaigns by University of Pittsburgh, University of Nottingham, University of British Columbia, and Roger Williams University students (Pittsburgh City Paper on Rahile Dawut, Impact Nottingham on G. N. Saibaba, The Ubyssey on Ilham Tohti, The Hawks’ Herald on several imprisoned scholars).
• Multiple events, including Mansfield University’s Student Showcase Conference, Muhlenberg College’s Week of Action, among others.
• Multiple social media and visual campaigns, including a video on the arrest and wrongful imprisonment of Patrick George Zaki by University of Oslo students.

This fall, in addition to the regular student efforts to raise awareness about imprisoned scholars, students in SAR Student Advocacy Seminars and Legal Clinics at University of British Columbia in Canada, and Yale Law School in the United States, are conducting research on visa and migration pathways for Afghan scholars.

Scholars in Prison

Key Actions 

• SAR arranged for former Scholar-in-Prison Peter Biar Ajak to speak at an event on critical hope organized by SAR member University of British Columbia, in Canada, in July. SAR and several Student Advocacy Seminars campaigned for Peter when he was wrongfully imprisoned for one and a half years. Peter spoke about his experience as a peace activist in South Sudan. 
• In July, SAR organized and issued a joint statement in support of Dr. Ahmadreza Djalali, calling on
  the European Union, European state governments, and the United States government to secure his release. SAR sections and partners participated in this effort, including over social media. The joint letter was covered in Läkartidningen and Research Professional News.  
• SAR issued a joint statement calling for the release of jailed Bahraini academic, blogger, and human rights defender Dr. Abduljalil Al-Singace, who has been on hunger strike to protest ill treatment and demand the return of a book he wrote in prison which was confiscated by prison authorities.
• On August 9, SAR sent a letter to Iranian authorities raising concern for the well-being of Niloufar Bayani, an imprisoned researcher and conservationist, who had just tested positive with COVID-19.

Since August, as part of a SAR-wide effort in support of scholars facing threats in Afghanistan, SAR has conducted outreach to US Members of Congress, the US Department of State, and relevant United States government staff around evacuation options, lists of scholars seeking help, and protection on the ground for scholars seeking to depart. SAR’s letter, signed by over 150 higher education institutions, associations, networks, and over 3,500 professionals and students concerned about colleagues in Afghanistan, urged the United States government to take immediate action to help save Afghanistan’s scholars, students, and civil society actors. SAR continues to seek United States government action to create/facilitate migration pathways for Afghan scholars and students. 

SAR Europe led a complementary effort in Europe—joined by higher education associations, networks, and leaders in the field of scholar protection—seeking funding and pathways of support for researchers at risk from Afghanistan. As part of a SAR-wide effort in support of scholars facing threats in Afghanistan, SAR Europe organized an appeal to European governments and EU institutions urging them to make necessary adjustments to entry/exit policies to facilitate relocation and pressing for a dedicated EU fellowship scheme and other dedicated funding streams. SAR also joined an NGO appeal to UN Member States to ensure the adoption of a resolution creating an investigative mechanism on Afghanistan at the 48^th session of the UN Human Rights Council. 

Courage to Think Award

The Scholars at Risk Courage to Think Award may be given to individuals or groups. These include those who have experienced threats personally, those who have worked to assist them, or those who work to promote a wider understanding, and respect for academic freedom and related values.

Established in 2011 in recognition of SAR’s 10^th anniversary, previous awards have been given to Aryeh Neier (United States), Habib Kazdaghli (Tunisia, 2014),  “over 600 wrongfully imprisoned scholars and students in Egypt” (2016), Barış İçin Akademisyenler (Academics for Peace) (Turkey, 2018), and Rahile Dawut (China, 2020). 

Dr. Ahmadreza Djalali, a prominent scholar of disaster medicine, is the recipient of SAR’s Courage to Think Award for 2021. Together with the international higher education and human rights communities, SAR recognizes Dr. Djalali’s contributions to his field, his impact on communities affected by crisis, and his continued struggle for freedom. On December 9th, Dr. Djalali’s wife, Vida Mehrannia, will accept the award on his behalf at SAR’s virtual symposium, “Free to Think 2021.”

SAR’s research and learning work aims to increase security for scholars and universities by strengthening collective understanding of academic freedom and related higher education values among states, higher education communities, and the public. 

This year SAR continued to disseminate and promote its publications. Promoting Higher Education Values: A Guide for Discussion explores the meaning of academic freedom, why it matters, and how to respond when it is threatened. Promoting Higher Education Values: Workshop Supplement offers exercises and advice for self-study by individuals or groups. SAR promotes these publications as tools for academic freedom education through trainings, workshops, seminars, and university courses. 

From April through June 2021, SAR developed and offered a five-part virtual discussion series called Lines, Line-Drawing, and Consequences that drew on the values publications and examined archetypal incidents that regularly challenge academic freedom on university campuses. The interactive series brought together 85 participants and offered tools for assessing incidents in real-time and developing pro-values responses for their higher education communities. 

Building on these publications, SAR and partners at the University of Oslo co-created an online course on academic freedom called Dangerous Questions: Why Academic Freedom Matters. The course features interactive video lectures, animations, quizzes, polls, and exercises to make the material accessible and to encourage discussion. The course has now engaged more than 5,000 participants from 140+ countries, reflecting the international demand for information about academic freedom.

In April, SAR hosted a virtual event with partners to promote the use of the Academic Freedom Index (AFi) as an instrument to inform research and drive human rights policy debates among government officials, parliamentarians, research funders, university administrators, academics, students, and advocates alike. The event, Free Universities: Putting the Academic Freedom Index Into Action Through the UN Human Rights Systems, featured the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of freedom of opinion and expression and a member of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR).

SAR Europe promotes SAR’s mission in Europe, seeking to strengthen European policymaking on academic freedom and improve support for at-risk scholars in all parts of Europe.

In 2020, SAR Europe convened a European Coordinating Committee for Academic Freedom Advocacy, which has grown to include 28 members in 19 countries. With input from committee members, SAR Europe contributed policy briefings and submissions to the Council of Europe, the European Research Area, the European Parliament, and the European Commission, with a view to informing Europe’s legal and policy norms as they relate to academic freedom. Together with SAR sections in Europe, SAR Europe also advocated towards national and European authorities on behalf of scholars in prison and to raise concern for scholars and academic freedom in Belarus, Turkey, Poland, Hungary, Egypt, Iran, and Afghanistan.

Mapping report of the EU-funded Inspireurope project, November 2020

SAR Europe, which is based at Maynooth University, Ireland, also coordinates the EU-funded Inspireurope project, a 10-partner initiative to strengthen support in Europe for researchers at risk. In November 2020, Inspireurope published Researchers at Risk: Mapping Europe’s Response, mapping the support measures available to researchers at risk in Europe, as well as gaps and opportunities for future support. In September 2021, the project published Researchers at Risk: National-Level Actions in Europe, gathering the experiences of 14 national-level initiatives in Europe to support at-risk scholars, including 12 SAR sections. The Inspireurope project also ran webinars and trainings for 370 researchers at risk in Europe and 406 prospective and current employers, and held a high-level forum gathering over 600 participants.