Syrian Academic Refugee Program (SARP)



One of the noble goals of the Arms Control Center is to support refugee scientists who leave their country due to war, conflict and persecution in order to save their lives and their families. European scholars uprooted by the turmoil of World War II included brilliant scientists such as Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr who greatly advanced the intellectual and scientific prowess of the countries that provided them with hospitality and a safe academic environment. In the same way, among the thousands of refugees from Syria there are brilliant scientists and university professors whose expertise and wisdom should not be wasted.

The Arms Control Center realized that there are many non-profit bodies in Greece and the Balkans which receive international support in order to help Syrian refugees but none of them has the scientific and educational status to focus on the academic component of the Syrian refugees. Therefore we decided to launch the Syrian Academic Refugee Program (SARP) an ambitious program of support for Syrian academic refugees (without excluding other Middle East countries of origin) and we need your help. SARP attempts to temporarily relocate refugee academics from Syria close to their homeland, as the goal is for those scholars to eventually return home and help rebuild their shattered country. Any scholarship, fellowship or other financial support that you can donate or provide to SARP will be used in our noble cause.

The Arms Control Center will use SARP funds to assess carefully all the academic credentials of the interested refugees, will interview them and select the most qualified ones to be employed in the Arms Control Center in order to conduct research in International Security, Arms Control, Disarmament, Peace keeping operations, and in all fields of Basic Science. We will use any international financial support provided to us to help and accommodate those Syrian Professors and Scientists and their families in Greece and all over Europe. This way the Syrian academic population will survive in Greece and in other European countries until Syria is safe again.

Greece and other Balkan and European countries involved in SARP will benefit from international donations and funds supporting the academic component of the refugees without straining their own national budget and economies! We do not seek financial support from the Greek government or any other government with financial problems which should try to support their own scientists. We seek support from the international community which is willing to help the Syrian academic refugees and the country that provides hospitality to them. There are currently many Greeks and Europeans in general who can get involved in this noble effort supported by your donations and contributions so that their own country and career will also benefit from the implementation of SARP on the imperiled refugee scholars from Syrian Universities and Research Centers.

Please don’t hesitate to contact the Arms Control Center if you wish to make a donation or support our cause in any other way!