The government has donated to a £3.5 million fellowship scheme for Ukrainian academics feeling the war in their home country.
The Researchers at Risk Fellowships Programme is a partnership between the UK’s national academies and the Council for At-Risk Academics (Cara).
Places to stay in the UK for up to two years are offered to researchers and their families based in Ukraine.
The fund was assembled with £3m from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and £500,000 from the Nuffield Foundation.
The scheme will provide each researcher with a visa and around £37,000 per year, covering salary, research expenses and living costs. Host institutions, which are yet to be named, will locate six months’ accommodation for the researcher and their dependents.
Since the ‘pre-announcement’ of this important new programme, many have wanted to find out more about it, so they can offer safe places and new opportunities to their Ukrainian colleagues
– Stephen Wordsworth, Council for At-Risk Academics
Stephen Wordsworth, Cara’s chief executive, said: “Since the ‘pre-announcement’ of this important new programme, many have wanted to find out more about it, so they can offer safe places and new opportunities to their Ukrainian colleagues.
“Now that it is being launched, I am sure that many will follow up, quickly; and, like others, I hope that it will become a permanent part of our response to tragedies like these, broadening out to offer all academics who are in danger a chance to come here to continue their work in safety and to enrich our cultural, scientific and intellectual lives, as their predecessors have done.”
Julia Black, president of the British Academy, said there was an “urgent need to support researchers from Ukraine to find safety for themselves and their families and continue their work”.
She added that the academy hoped to secure funding to “broaden access to the scheme and support all at-risk researchers wherever they may be based”.
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