Dossier Philipp Schwartz Initiative
Since 2016, the Philipp Schwartz Initiative has enabled German universities and research institutions to host foreign researchers who are threatened by war and persecution in their own countries for a period of two years.
A safe haven for international researchers fleeing from war and persecution
The Initiative grants funding to German universities and research institutions which they can use to finance such foreign academics for two years. The Humboldt Foundation launched the programme together with the Federal Foreign Office. Universities that apply for sponsorship under the Philipp Schwartz Initiative must submit, amongst other things, a strategy explaining how they will treat threatened researchers and integrate them academically.
A new beginning for researchers at risk Brochure for the fifth anniversary of the Philipp Schwartz Initiative in 2021 (PDF, 8 MB)
Philipp Schwartz Initiative: Programme information and documents
Network and model for other safe haven projects
As well as sponsoring individuals, the initiative also seeks to provide a platform for information sharing on the situation of threatened researchers. In this context, the Humboldt Foundation cooperates with international partner organisations such as the Scholars at Risk Network, the Scholar Rescue Fund and the Council for At-Risk Academics. Until March 2022, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation is also hosting the secretariat of the German Section of the Scholars at Risk Network, founded in 2016.
The Initiative has become a blueprint for other programmes in Europe. The Collège de France, for instance, has established PAUSE, its own aid programme for threatened researchers that is modelled on the Philipp Schwartz Initiative. PAUSE is, moreover, one of the Humboldt Foundation’s partners in the EU project InSPIREurope in which ten organisations from nine European countries have got together to campaign for the interests of threatened researchers under the leadership of the newly established European office of Scholars at Risk.
Evaluation of the Philipp Schwartz Initiative
Evaluation of the Humboldt Foundation’s sponsorship programmesThe Philipp Schwartz Initiative (PSI) enables universities and other research institutions in Germany to host at-risk foreign researchers who are thus able to continue their research work for an initial period of two years on the strength of Philipp Schwartz Fellowships.
In 2019, Technopolis, the Viennese evaluation agency, evaluated PSI on behalf of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. Their final report establishes that the PSI programme goals have been achieved to a high degree. In analogy with the four programme goals, Technopolis came to the following conclusions:
- The institutions create legal, administrative, social and/or research-related structures to facilitate hosting at-risk researchers at German institutions.
- Temporary hosting and integration of at-risk researchers at German institutions has been successful. The fellows have been able to resume their research work. Everyone involved in the project is looking to the period after the fellowship.
- PSI and the Humboldt Foundation’s associated activities have alerted many key actors in the German science system to the situation of at-risk researchers.
- The Humboldt Foundation has managed to establish itself as a key player in the field of at-risk researchers in Germany.
To conduct the evaluation, both qualitative and quantitative methods were used. The evaluation results are based on online surveys of all project leaders, mentors and fellows of the first four selection rounds (May 2016 to August 2018). The study was complemented by numerous interviews both with individuals in the three PSI groups involved (fellows, project leaders, mentors) and with national and international stakeholders in the programme environment as well as those responsible for the programme at the Humboldt Foundation. In addition, some case vignettes were prepared on the spot. A systematic comparison of funding initiatives for at-risk researchers locates PSI in the national and international funding landscape.
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