Workshop Threatened Researchers II: Science in Exile – Shared Responsibilities

A second workshop concerning the subject of Threatened Researchers took place on 6^th December 2018. The workshop was organized by ZAK and the International Scholars and Welcome Office (IScO) in cooperation with the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and Humboldt Regional Group Karlsruhe-Pforzheim e.V. within the Philipp Schwartz Initiative. Prior to the workshop a film screening of a documentary was organized in the course of the World Science Café.

If the preconditions of science such as freedom and democracy are threatened, this has many potential consequences: the threat for researchers at an individual personal level as well as for science and academic work in general.
Due to these developments, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation created a new initiative, the Philipp Schwartz Initiative. Its aim is to support threatened researchers. From the beginning, KIT successfully supported the initiative as a host institution with its own concept as well as in the Scholars at Risk Network.

The purpose of this year’s workshop “Threatened Researchers II – Science in Exile. Shared Responsibilities” was to gain deeper insights into the success, disillusionments and lessons learned on the individual, administrative and scientific level with regard to the support of endangered researchers. Apart from the reflection on success and challenges, the workshop aimed at working on new perspectives on the further development of possibilities of exiled researchers’ participation in the local scientific community.

The workshop was designed for affected researchers, fellow academics, institutional and administrative employees of host institutions and the interested public.

Based on the experiences of persecuted researchers themselves as well as on institutional, administrative and civil society actors, future approaches to reception, accompaniment and career development was discussed.

An opening event took place on 5th December at the NTI-lecture hall at KIT. „Science in Exile“ a film by Nicole Leghissa was presented. The film portrays researchers from Syria, Yemen and Iraq, who were forced to leave their homeland and to pursue their research in another country. The screening took place in the context of the World Science Café series of lectures. The documentary was followed by a discussion with affected researchers.

Programme

Speakers