There is a consensus that universities have an important role to play in the reconstruction of conflict-torn societies, and that is where competent scholars are needed. However, very often, not enough attention is placed on the important role of universities and academia in emergencies. Integration of recently arrived refugee students and scholars into the European academic community serves thus long-term capacity-building in their home countries. Universities in different European countries have been active in initiating support measures for threatened students and scholars and in some countries, such as in Finland and Germany, national level actors have also been active in coordination of the support measures. However, a European-level forum for the higher education sector to focus on this specific field has been lacking. ACA members, national-level bodies responsible for international cooperation in higher education and research, have even before and especially since 2015 looking for ways to work together and engage in some kind of joint action that would help address pertinent issues both at national and European level. There have been several initiatives (mapping exercises, close and public seminars on the topic) within the ACA framework, and as of April 2018, GREET is one more joint endeavour to address the topic of integration of highly skilled refugees. The GREET project has since provided an important platform for actors on institutional, national and international level to join their expertise.
Guiding Refugees via European Exchange and Training (GREET) was coordinated by the Academic Cooperation Association (ACA) from April 2018 until October 2019. Funded under the Horizon 2020 Science4Refugees call, the project has contributed to the integration of highly skilled refugees in European higher education through mutual learning and exchange of good practices among national support structures and higher education institutions (HEIs) in 9 European countries (Austria, Belgium/Flanders, Germany, Greece, Finland, France, Norway, Sweden and the UK). By scaling up successful practices in Germany and Finland via a peer learning activity (PLA) and disseminating its results through three thematic webinars, the project enabled debates at European level on current practices and obstacles for their implementation, searched for joint solutions and improvements for a better and more effective integration of highly skilled refugees residing in the participating countries. The results of both PLA and webinars were shared at a large stakeholder event in Brussels in June 2019, and are stored in the GREET online compendium – a repository of existing policies and practices available to the wider higher education community.
The core consortium was composed of the Brussels-based ACA Secretariat (the coordinator), and ACA members DAAD (Germany) and EDUFI (Finland), but it also involved a number of ACA members (UHR, OeAD, IKY, IIE, FKA) and HEIs from the participating countries. Scholars at Risk, IIE’s Scholar Rescue Fund and VUB’s Mohammad Salman were involved as well as members of the Advisory Board. They added their vast knowledge and experience in supporting refugee students and scholars find their way into higher education systems and labour markets.
