Deputy Director Ben Fletcher-Watson and IASH Director Lesley McAra have written an opinion piece for WonkHE about the role of Institutes of Advanced Study in offering academic asylum.
From Singapore and Australia to Norway and Belgium, governments and individual universities around the globe are seizing the opportunity to attract the top American minds. For scholars fearful of their government’s policy direction on academic freedom, such as those working in gender studies, on vaccine research or climate change, the situation is urgent.
Yet this is nothing new. The Council for At-Risk Academics (CARA) has helped researchers escape persecution and conflict for almost a century, bringing the likes of Nikolaus Pevsner, Max Born and Albie Sachs to safety in Britain. Conceived in response to the Nazi assault on universities, CARA drove Britain’s scholarly rescue mission in the 1930s. At the same time, a parallel movement began in the USA. The Institute for Advanced Study was created at Princeton, with Albert Einstein appointed as the first Fellow in 1932.
Read the full article here.