Solidarity in academia: How Academics beyond Borders empowers displaced PhD students

This programme is an example of staff and student-led initiatives across the University that have been created to support people whose study or education has been interrupted due to global crises or conflict in their home country.

Academics beyond borders offers remote doctoral supervision from academics at the School of Social and Political Science (SPS), online academic mentoring from either a fellow postgraduate student or a member of staff from SPS and access to the University’s electronic library resources. It aims to support PhD students enrolled in courses in conflict zones who are experiencing an interruption in their education and access to resources needed to complete their studies.

A solidarity initiative

The impetus to create Academics beyond Borders (ABB) sprang from a desire to support the Academics for Peace signatories in Turkey (who had signed a petition demanding that the Turkey government stop bombing the Kurdish part of the country and suffer repression amounting to ‘civil death’ as a result). Support was also extended to Ukraine-based doctoral students following the assault on Ukraine by Russia in February 2022. 

Isabelle Darmon and Sophia Woodman were the staff members involved in the School of Social and Political Science staff and student group that created the ABB programme in 2017. They said:

This might seem a straightforward step to take: it was not, as this student status did not exist before, and without a student status (and a programme code), access to Library resources cannot be granted.

Support developed in collaboration

Academics beyond Borders sought to match the volunteer supervisors according to each student’s field of research, and mentoring was meant to help participants in the programme with support for accessing journals, structuring an academic paper, or presenting at virtual conferences. This scheme aimed to provide PhD students affected by persecution or/and war with support to work independently and to maintain links with the international academic community, it is not a degree-granting programme. 

The University and the School also granted a fee waiver for 20 places. 

“This was essential as the programme was meant to last for some months for each student (in fact it has almost always been a year, sometimes two), and in any case more than 12 weeks (In person visiting students staying less than 12 weeks do not have to pay fees),” explained Sophia.

Finding the first scholars to join the programme

Isabelle explained that it was notoriously difficult to publicise a scheme like ABB when repression and heavy policing of a country and its people is taking place. 

“There is the added difficulty of language since we cannot organise this programme in another language than English. Only six student signatories of the Academics for Peace petition took part in our programme (2018-2019 and 2019-2020).” said Isabelle.

Dissemination of our call was easier in the direction of PhD students at Ukrainian universities, thanks to the Science4Ukraine platform, Isabelle explained. This was established by Ukrainian scholars very early on, and thanks to work done by an SPS PhD student, and paid for by SPS. Nevertheless, the programme only had a total of 9 students (over 2022-2034 and 2023-2024), based in Kyiv, but also in Lutsk (NW Ukraine), as well as in Warsaw and London (for those amongst the participants who had to flee). 

Lifting the bureaucratic hurdles

Applicants were not required to prove their level of English. It was understood that supervision and mentoring were going to be in English, so their level has to allow them to interact. Instead, the programme conveners checked their level to some degree in the email communication with them and in their application. This was a considerable departure from usual requirements, and one that had to be negotiated too. 

“We sought to lift as much as possible the bureaucratic hurdles of applications”, Sophia said.

Eighteen colleagues mainly from the School of Social and Political Science, but also from the Law School, volunteered to take part as supervisors or mentors for the students from Ukrainian universities. They worked in teams of two with each student, responding to where the student was at. Like the work of the programme conveners, this is purely voluntary work that is not recognised in the “WAM”, perhaps something that could be improved in the future. 

Understanding the challenges of study for displaced people

“Our participants benefitted unevenly from the programme – the material circumstances and traumatic experience made it humanly impossible for some of them to carry on working on their PhDs. For others, the programme did meet its objectives of encouraging them to keep to their studies despite the extremely stressful and materially challenging environment.” said Isabelle.

Maintaining a focus on their studies and making them feel part of a wider academic community were and are the two key aims of Academics Beyond Borders. 

Isabelle shared that some of the participants in the scheme for Ukraine wrote at the end of their programme to express their appreciation for such support, and their words speak for themselves.

Future plans

Isabelle and other SPS colleagues are looking into possibly developing ABB in the direction of Palestinian PhD students in the social sciences who have fled Gaza and are able to access some minimum communication and study infrastructure where they are based.

For staff in other Schools who might be interested in setting up a similar programme, more information about the programme is available on the SPS website and Isabelle is available for further enquiries.