On 3-5 May 2022, “G7+ Partners”[1], the leadership built by international education agencies, came together in Berlin with Academic Cooperation Association (ACA) and their counterparts from Spain, Poland, Norway, the Netherlands, Finland, the Czech Republic, and Austria for their Higher Education Summit, dedicated this year to “International Academic Cooperation amidst a World in Crisis: Opportunities and Challenges.”
Following the summit, the leadership of the ‘G7+ Partners’, in cooperation with eight other countries and the ACA, shared a joint declaration that pledges support for threatened academics and students and calls for regional, national, and international level partnerships to establish instruments to enhance the support both for threatened scholars and post-conflict institutional and capacity re-building.
The signatories of “The Berlin Declaration on International Academic Cooperation amidst a World in Crisis” stated that the pain and suffering caused by the ongoing war against Ukraine unite them in the “belief that democratic states which cherish and share fundamental values such as freedom, including academic freedom, and the rule of law, should stand together” and that “their countries and higher education institutions are and should be safe havens for students and scholars that face persecution or were forced to flee their homeland due to armed conflict, irrespective of nationality.”
Inviting like-minded partners around the globe, the signatories pledged “to work with national and regional authorities and other partners, such as private foundations and international organizations, as well as national higher education institutions and research organizations, to support threatened or persecuted students and scholars, as well as to support post-conflict institutional re-building, and capacity and leadership development as soon as the conflict conditions allow for it.
Endangered Scholars Worldwide (ESW) is committed to supporting threatened academics and students and stands in solidarity with G7+ Partners and other initiatives that center on higher education during and after conflict times.
Sources:
[1] Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, and the US.