The Scholar Rescue Fund Aids Scholars Whose Lives and Work Are Threatened in Their Home Countries. (January 11, 2007)

    The International Institute of Education (noted for their administration of the US' Fulbright Scholarships) describes itself as "an independent non-profit organization founded in 1919, [which] is a world leader in the exchange of people and ideas. The Institute administers over 200 programs serving more than 20,000 individuals each year".

In 2002, the Institute’s trustees committed to making scholar rescue a permanent part of its work. The Institute together with George Soros, founded the Scholar Rescue Fund with the commitment "that threatened scholars find safe haven and continue their work".

The Institute's website describes the Scholarship Rescue Fund (SRF) in the following terms:

The Fund formalizes and seeks to endow the activity that the Institute has undertaken throughout its history on behalf of scholars under threat. It has enabled the Institute thus far to issue 95 grants to recipients from three dozen nations and place scholars in 20 nations worldwide.

The endowment goal of $50 million –will ensure that there will always be a source of support and safe haven for persecuted scholars. It will also enable the Institute to research and explore the root causes of repression of academic freedom around the world. IIE is grateful for contributions totaling $15 million to date, including a gift of $1 million from the Ford Foundation to launch the endowment and an historic gift of $10 million from IIE Trustee Dr. Henry Kaufman.

An Australian academic -- cynic or realist? -- upon hearing of the SRF made the following observation:

It's the sort of initiative that you could  not imagine an Australian university being associated with. We are  too focused on making money to take seriously the sort of leadership that universities used to provided.

But perhaps TFW might also ask, not entirely facetiously, if Australian academics/researchers mightn't fall into the category of "threatened scholars"?