EDM 505 and its background

 An EDM is  used to draw attention to an issue or problem, in parliament and in the press. Lobbying MPs is necessary to get them to sign up to EDMs; without such lobbying, it is unlikely that an EDM will attract signatures or attention. So we need as many people as possible to contact their MPs to ask them for their support. 

Much of the infrastructure already exists, in the form of the British Academy’s Researchers-at-Risk Scheme, set up to help Ukrainian academics and their families. But the funding is not yet there to enable the BA to extend the scheme to Palestinian academics and their families.

Some parliamentarians are already supporting this campaign, but we need more MPs to voice their support.

Please write to your MP, and to any MPs with whom you have an established relationship, to ask them to:

• write in support of this campaign to Government and/or

• table a written question in support of this campaign  

You can find your MP and their contact details here. 

Please let us know what your MP replies. You can contact us here.

You may also like to support and promote the BRISMES Fund for Higher Education in Gaza.  The British Society for Middle Eastern Studies is a UK registered Charity.  All money donated will go towards supporting the survival and rebuilding of the higher education system in Gaza. 

Background to EDM505:

After the invasion of Ukraine, the British Academy (BA) instituted a 'Researchers at Risk' scheme to assist Ukrainian academics and their families. It did so in collaboration with the Council for At-Risk Academics (Cara) whose origins lay in 1930s initiatives in which members of the UK academic community joined forces to provide sanctuary to German colleagues being forced out of their positions by the Nazis.

The Researchers at Risk scheme was funded mainly by government, with some contributions from other foundations. The descriptors of the scheme addressed the plight of threatened academics wherever they might be,  but so far, the scheme has been open only to Ukrainians. 

Palestinian Higher Education has been devastated in the wake of Israel's retaliation to the atrocious Hamas attacks on October 7th.  A Times Higher Education article of Jan 29, 2024 notes that 'every single higher education institution in Gaza is believed to have been either destroyed or severely damaged since the invasion began'. More recent reports detail some of the individual Palestinian academics killed, including historians, economists, scholars of English literature and language, poets, physicists, gynaecologists, political scientists, psychologists, surgeons, lawyers, Deans and Fulbright Scholars, professors and lecturers, and thousands of students.  A 7/3/2024  Le Monde article notes that 'three presidents and nearly a hundred deans and professors have so far been killed in the bombardments' and quotes UN estimates that by January, around 75% of Gaza's educational infrastructure was already damaged.  

Cara has already lost one of its 'alumni' in Gaza; Cara is being contacted by Palestinian academics but at present it is impossible for people to leave. 

We need to ensure that when people can leave, the conditions are in place to allow academics, if they so wish, rapidly to relocate to a place of safety in a UK academic institution so that they are better able eventually to reconstruct Higher Education in Gaza. The infrastructure is already established, in the form of organisations like Cara, and the BA's Researchers at Risk Scheme. But we need the funding to be in place to enable those organisations to act immediately it is possible for them to do so, and for this, government help is crucial.