Seven Years of Academy in Exile

For the past seven years, AiE has headed a proud tradition of support for scholars at risk.


To mark AiE’s fifth anniversary, UDE’s Chancellor and AiE’s largest funder, VolkswagenStiftung, stressed that AiE is vitally needed.

For the press release, see here and in English here.

Call For Submissions


Academy in Exile announces the Call for Submission for a Special Issue of Ostrakon: “Sustaining Academic Freedom for Scholars at Risk” 


The interdisciplinary journal Ostrakon is publishing a special issue devoted to topics raised at recent meetings of the Transatlantic Working Group for At-Risk Scholars, a collaborative initiative supported by University Alliance Ruhr and Academy in Exile at TU Dortmund University. The journal invites submissions for a special issue entitled “Sustaining Academic Freedom for Scholars at Risk”. The special issue aims to explore how initiatives and programs designed to support displaced and persecuted scholars can be maintained and strengthened so as to promote academic freedom in the long term.


Submissions may be sent to Dr. Lydia Schmuck (publications.aie.kuwi@tu-dortmund.de).


Access the Call for Submissions here.

International Conference









Afghans in Exile: Identities and Solidarity


The Afghan diaspora is not a homogenous entity. While members of the Afghan diaspora have spread globally and become enriching contributors to their new societies, others may consider themselves living in exile, retaining their former homes and close ties to their former homeland. 
Those with unofficial “exile” standing who hold temporary residence permits, student or researcher visas, or possess other forms of tenuous migration status may be likewise considered part of the Afghan diaspora, albeit uncounted, less well recognized, and less readily heard. It is these Afghan exiles who are non-violent in the resistance to the Taliban and the growing Afghan diaspora to whom the Afghans in Exile conference wish to give voice. Organizer: Dr. Frangis Dadfar Spanta


24-25 January 2025
Internationales Begegnungszentrum (IBZ), TU Dortmund University,
Emil-Figge-Straße 59, 44227 Dortmund


Public Statement

Academy in Exile has been trolled by politically-motivated parties.

Academy in Exile is committed to supporting scholars at risk and to advancing academic freedom. Academy in Exile adheres to the principles of good academic practice and the rule of law.

Legal action has been taken against libelous claims.

Prof. Dr. Vanessa Agnew

Technische Universität Dortmund


Prof. Dr. Verena Blechinger-Talcott

Freie Universität Berlin


Prof. Dr. Volker M. Heins

Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut


Georges Khalil

Forum Transregionale Studien


Prof. Dr. Kader Konuk

Technische Universität Dortmund

Fellows of the Academy in Exile

Fellowships
12-24 months

59


Short Term Fellowships

3-6 months

19


78fellows
55%women
44%men
1%diverse

Disciplines of Academy in Exile-Fellows

27x

Social sciences

16x

Humanities

10x

History

9x

Political sciences

6x

Law

5x

Arts

2x

Psychology

1x

Journalism

1x

Economics

1x

Media studies

Countries of Origin of Academy in Exile-Fellows
Host Institutions

Host Institutions


  • FU: 27
  • Forum: 21
  • KWI: 18
  • UDE: 10

ABOUT

Academy in Exile (AiE) supports cultural producers and scholars in the humanities, arts, social sciences, and law who are at risk because of their academic work and/or their civic engagement in human rights, democracy, and pursuit of academic freedom. AiE provides a forum for reflecting on the pressing challenges to intellectual life, critical thinking, reason, social and environmental justice, and diversity that face the world today and that define the parameters of academic freedom. AiE fellowships afford scholars the opportunity to continue their careers in Germany and to work on a research project of their own choosing in a multidisciplinary environment. Fellows contribute to and help shape the research agenda and intellectual profile of AiE generally.

HISTORY

Academy in Exile was founded in 2017 as a joint initiative of the Institute for Turkish Studies at the University of Duisburg-Essen, the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities (KWI) Essen and the Forum Transregionale Studien Berlin. The Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin and the Volkswagen Foundation provided start-up funding. From 2019 to 2023, with support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and Open Society Foundations, AiE also hosted scholars at the Freie Universität Berlin, as part of Academy in Exile’s Critical Thinking Residency Program, which gathered scholars into a cohort around the theme of critical thinking. Funding from the Mellon Foundation, Volkswagen Foundation, Open Society Foundations, Freudenberg Foundation, IIE-Scholar Rescue Fund, Scholars at Risk Network, Allianz Foundation, and German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) has allowed AiE to support scholars, artists, and journalists through fellowships and positions, and to further its research, cultural activities, and outreach.

FELLOWSHIPS

Academy in Exile is based on a model that creates multidisciplinary cohorts of scholars around a unified theme, with the aim of enabling persecuted scholars to collaborate with one another. Since its inception in 2017, AiE has created 78 hosting arrangements through long-term fellowships, emergency stipends, artist-in-residence fellowships, and guest professorships. Unlike many other initiatives that support displaced scholars, AiE fellows are resident in the area; they meet regularly for colloquia, conferences, workshops, professional development, and other scholarly and cultural activities, and receive intensive support from the AiE team and university community. A number of AiE fellows are hosted each year by the KWI in Essen. In 2025, 19 fellows from nine different countries were offered fellowships by AiE. 

COOPERATION

In 2025, Academy in Exile established a cooperation with the Institute for the Humanities at the University of Michigan to enable an AiE scholar to be hosted in Ann Arbor.

ONLINE COURSES

Since 2019, online courses developed by Academy in Exile as part of its Tandem Teaching Program have been co-developed by scholars barred from academic life in their home countries. Across borders and disciplines, scholars collaborate to shape widely accessible, pioneering pedagogical tools for higher education. Course videos can be accessed through AiE’s YouTube channel. A new course, Afghanistan and the Arts, will be launched in 2025.

CONFERENCES AND WORKSHOPS

Academy in Exile creates scholarly fora for the dissemination of its intellectual work. An inaugural international conference was held on October 18–19, 2018 at the KWI in Essen on the topic of Exile and Academic Freedom Today. The conference helped identify gaps in existing support mechanisms for exiled scholars, and proposed new models of support such as the one provided by AiE. AiE hosted a second international conference on Critical Thinking on January 16–17, 2020 at Freie Universität Berlin. AiE’s third international conference on The Unrecognized Genocide: Dersim 1937–1938 took place on November 18–20, 2021, making a scholarly intervention in an under-researched topic. On December 8–9, 2022, AiE organized a closed workshop, Philosophical Steamboat 1922–2022: On the Centenary of the Exile of Intellectuals, at KWI that brought together scholars from Russia and Ukraine. More recent conferences and workshops include the Expert Stakeholders’ Workshop during the annual DWIH conference FUTURE FORUM in New York City on October 20, 2023 to strategize around support for displaced scholars, and the Conference on Critical Engagement with the History of Sinti and Roma on November 9, 2023, the first such conference of its kind. A workshop entitled Shared Histories: Gallipoli, Australia, and the Armenian Genocide brought together international scholars working in history, museum studies, memory and commemoration, and genocide studies. It was co-organized with the Australian National University’s Humanities Research Centre, History Co-Lab, and School of History, and held on September 3–4, 2024. Afghans in Exile: Identities and Solidarity, January 24–25, 2025, marks the culmination of AiE’s Mellon Foundation and Volkswagen Foundation–funded AiE Afghanistan Program, which has supported 10 Afghan scholars.

PUBLICATIONS

Academy in Exile launched a series with transcript Verlag to publish monographs and edited volumes on academic freedom, authoritarianism, exile, and related topics. The first volume in the series, Refugee Routes: Telling, Looking, Protesting, Redressing (2020) is edited by Vanessa Agnew, Kader Konuk, and Jane O. Newman (University of California Irvine). A second volume, Academics in Exile: Networks, Knowledge Exchange, and New Forms of Internationalization, edited by Vera Axyonova (Universität Wien), Florian Kohstall (Freie Universität Berlin), and Carola Richter (Freie Universität Berlin) was published in June 2022. The third volume, What We Brought with Us: Things of Exile and Migration, edited by Vanessa Agnew, appeared in 2024.

Academy in Exile’s short-form imprint Ostrakon publishes multi- and interdisciplinary work that explores themes broadly related to mass mobility, forced migration, and exile arising from conflict, authoritarianism, and climate change. Ostrakon welcomes contributions that move beyond conventional scholarly presentational forms to alternative modes of creative and multimedia work. Currently in preparation are Ostrakon issues on academic freedom, sustainability, security, and equity and representation for scholars at risk.

EXHIBITIONS

Academy in Exile curates and hosts exhibitions on topics related to forced migration and exile. To date, Academy in Exile-supported exhibitions have been shown in Dortmund, Essen, Düsseldorf, Berlin, Marbach, New York City, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Canberra, and online. Exhibitions are developed by AiE members, including participants in its Artist-in-Residence Program.

TRANSATLANTIC WORKING GROUP FOR AT-RISK SCHOLARS

Co-organized by Academy in Exile and University Alliance Ruhr, the Transatlantic Working Group for At-Risk Scholars convenes an annual meeting to discuss cooperation between institutions on both sides of the Atlantic to strategize around support for displaced scholars. Meetings discussing best practices have been held in New York City (2023) and Berkeley (2024). The next meeting will be held in conjunction with the Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes meeting in Berlin in June 2025. 

GARDEN(S) OF REFUGE

With funding from the Mellon Foundation, Allianz Foundation, and Rudolf Chaudoire-Stiftung, and support from TU Dortmund University, Academy in Exile—together with the Smart Urban Areas Project in the Spatial Planning Department at TU Dortmund University and UA Ruhr partners—has initiated a Garden(s) of Refuge project to plant a micro-forest on the TU Dortmund University campus. With input from faculty, students, staff, AiE fellows, and members of the public, the project draws attention to the interconnections between climate change and forced migration. An associated cultural and educational program will be supplemented by research projects that monitor the garden. A partner garden at the University of Cincinnati in Ohio fosters collaboration and internationalization with one of TU Dortmund University’s strategic partners.

TRANSNATIONAL LITERARY ARCHIVE

Academy in Exile maintains a Transnational Literary Archive, begun in 2018 by Kader Konuk at the University of Duisburg-Essen’s Turkish Department. The Archive is the first archive of its kind in Germany. It has the aim of collecting transnational literature produced in Germany and provides a framework for conducting research into Germany’s multicultural heritage.