Opening up for academic refugees
The University of Oslo wishes to welcome more researchers seeking asylum, and also wishes to include refugees with academic backgrounds who are already in Norway.
On Tuesday, University Director Gunn-Elin Aa. Bjørneboe received unanimous support from the university board for the proposal that the University of Oslo (UiO) should welcome a new academic refugee every other year. In addition to this, the university director requests a consideration of whether scholars who are staying in Norway as refugees should be given access to academic environments at UiO.
Universitas wrote on October 15th that even though the university has been a member of the «Scholars at Risk» (SAR) network since 2001, it has only offered positions to two persecuted academics, and none since 2004. The network fights for academic freedom, mainly by arranging temporary positions at host institutions connected to the network.
Bjørneboe thinks that it is a realistic ambition to get the arrangement to work.
– Now we have made an even bigger strategic decision, and I am glad that the university board agreed with the resolution, Bjørneboe states.
UiO is the only host institution for persecuted academics in the Nordic countries. On a worldwide basis, 1500 researchers have applied for asylum through SAR in the period from 2001 to 2008. 105 have been given positions.
– We will keep our membership of SAR and expand our SAR committee by two members of academic staff in addition to the regular coordinator. I hope that this will increase the intensity of and the interest in this work, Bjørneboe says.
Leader of Borderland – Forum for Asylum Seekers and Refugees, Rune Berglund Steen, welcomes UiO’s ambitions. He thinks that it is commendable that UiO is partaking in the struggle for academic freedom, yet still encourages UiO to become even more concrete in their plans for including academics that are already in Norway.
– Unfortunately, there are no statistics showing how many asylum seekers and refugees there are in Norway with scholarly backgrounds, but UiO is pointing out an important problem, which is that society is missing out on people with a very high level of academic competence, Berglund Steen says.
