Key Successes: Supporting displaced scholars and students

In 2015, we introduced a Refugee Advisory Service to coordinate advice and assistance to prospective and current students with refugee status (and protected status/asylum) across the University. The Refugee Advisory Service is located in our Edinburgh Global Office as there was already local knowledge of the specific situations facing refugees and those with related status, including knowledge of the refugee legal framework. The service became the Refugee and At Risk Advisory Group in 2019. Learn more here.

In 2017, the University of Edinburgh was one of the first universities in the UK to obtain a University of Sanctuary status, in recognition of our culture and practice of welcome within the university and our wider communities. In 2020, we successfully renewed our status for a further three years, and committed to a three-year action plan. Learn more here.

The University of Edinburgh (colleagues in SPS, Moray House Education, and the Mastercard scholars program), in collaboration with the Refugee Law Project, and the American University of Beirut successfully piloted its Foundations For All (FFA) project! This was a project researching blended learning for higher education access amongst 40 refugees and disadvantaged members of the host community in Uganda (urban Kampala and rural Kiryandongo).

The pilot’s key aim was to support 40 adult learners to improve their chances of gaining university admission, with a focus on Makerere University’s entrance exam for mature-age students. As many of the learners’ secondary or higher education had been disrupted due to forced displacement and related hardship, the FFA team designed a blended-learning curriculum providing learners with English and maths courses (both entrance exam subjects), as well as digital skills and study skills training to prepare them for undergraduate study. The learners were also offered extensive psycho-social support and training to increase their mental well-being and improve their esteem and confidence. The project will enter its second iteration exploring how barriers the students in the mature age exam could be addressed. Learn more here.

Academic year 2021/22 saw an initial pilot year for the Scholars Network, a new initiative at the University to support scholars from priority scholarships. These Scholars are funded at least in-part by the University’s Development Trust Fund, which has a mandate to provide support to access/widening participation students. Learn more here.

A small working group has been undertaking a consultation with colleagues from across the institution to understand how we can better support the inclusion, access and success of ‘global access’ or international widening participation students at the University. The consultation is in the beginning stages of developing an Action Plan, which will incorporate existing initiatives, as well as propose changes needed throughout the whole student cycle (application to graduation) to meet the University’s objectives set out in its 2030 Strategy.

The Syrian Futures project (based at the University’s Centre for the Study of Islam in the Contemporary World) supports Scottish Syrians to access Higher Education and Employment in order to achieve their full potential. They work and collaborate with other initiatives and projects within and beyond the University of Edinburgh to help create opportunities, engage Syrians within their local communities and help them make positive contributions to wider society. Learn more here.

Collaboration across the global university sector is a vital way to maximise the impact of national and institutional efforts to support refugees and displaced people in accessing higher education. We are involved with a number of key partners/networks, including:

• The Council for At Risk Academics (Cara)
• Scholars At Risk (SAR)
• UNHCR CLCC (Connected Learning in Crisis Consortium)

Refuge.Ed project, supporting by the Student Experience Grant, aims is to gain a deeper understanding of the refugee and asylum seeker student experience at the University by giving student scholars a voice. The Global Community Team has been undertaking interviews with current refugee and asylum-seeking students, organising gathering for students to connect and provide peer-support. As a result, this project will deliver a suite of supportive materials for students, applicants and support staff by the start of academic year 2022/23.

We ensure that we collaborate and support the student groups at the University of Edinburgh involved in this area of work, as well as ensuring they have the opportunity to feed into our work – for example, a representative of STAR sits on our Refugee Advisory Group.

• Student Action for Refugees (STAR)
• Amnesty International Student Society
• Third Culture Society
• SolidariTee
• Refugee Community Kitchen
• Europe Must Act Campaign – student activism

As a large, devolved University, we want to work collaboratively to ensure that, where possible, facilities and infrastructure (and key contacts) are shared in support of this area of work.

For example, in 2020 the Chaplaincy Service and Widening Participation worked together with the Centre for Sport and Exercise in order to provide free access to sports facilities as part of the Chaplaincy run Syrian Refugee Project.