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FEATURE REFUGEES Providing refuge Rachel Brazil looks at schemes to help refugee scientists in the past, present and future © United Nation Relief & Works Agency via Getty Images

20 OCTOBER 2016 REFUGEES FEATURE

n July 2015, the Nobel medal won by biochemist Hans Krebs in 1953 was auctioned at Sothebys for £225,000. IHis family decided to use the money raised to set up the Sir Hans Krebs Trust, in support of refugee scientists. ‘For me it is a wonderful opportunity to help people who are in desperate need,’ explains his son, Oxford zoologist John Krebs. ‘I believe that my father would have approved of using the money to support today’s scientists at risk in the way that he was, during the Hitler period.’ Today, the fund is needed more than ever. ‘This is now the busiest we’ve been since the 1930s, which gives you an idea of the scale of the problem,’ says Stephen Wordsworth, the executive director of the UK-based Council for At-Risk Academics (Cara). Hans Krebs, who died in 1981, came to the UK as a refugee in 1933, soon after Hitler rose to power in Germany and forced all ‘non-Aryans’ out of civil service and professional occupations. With funding from the Rockefeller Foundation, he moved to Cambridge. ‘He was remarkably lucky: as a scientist who had already established an international reputation, he was offered a post, albeit temporary and on soft money,’ says John Krebs. In 1935, the University of Sheffield offered him a lectureship and he stayed there for 19 years, continuing the work on cell metabolism which led to his Nobel prize for medicine. ‘He had even managed to bring some of his equipment with him from Germany,’ adds Krebs. It is often said that the generation of German Jewish refugee scientists who fled to the US and UK in the 1930s helped revitalise science and innovation in those countries. There are 16 Nobel prize winners in their ranks, including Krebs, Ernst Chain, Max Perutz, Walter Kohn and John Polanyi. A 2014 study from economist Petra Moser of Stanford University in the US argues refugees were responsible for the 31% rise in chemistry patents filed in the US after 1933.

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Scholars At Risk Many of those who came the UK were helped by Cara. has over 500 Originally known as the Academic Assistance Council and From Bosnia to MIT then the Society for the Protection of Science and Learning, cases on its list For those caught up in a conflict at a young age, getting the organisation was set up in 1933 by William Beveridge, at the moment an education at all can be a challenge. Former refugee director of the London School of Economics. It wasn’t an Admir Masic, originally from Bosnia, is now an assistant easy task, but by 1939 the organisation had raised £100,000 professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (£15 million in 2015 prices – or about 10 Spitfires) and in the US, having spent most of his teenage years in supported over 2600 scholars. After the war they continued a Croatian refugee camp. ‘Education for me was the to help academic refugees from areas of conflict, including key to my life,’ explains Masic. Through a scholarship Greece, Hungary, South Africa and Chile. from the Open Society Foundations, founded by US Today, Cara is again providing a lifeline to a growing philanthropist George Soros, he was able to study at number of refugee scientists fleeing the Syrian conflict. the University of Turin in Italy, gaining a PhD in physical chemistry in 2006. According to the United Nations, over 11 million Syrians Masic’s story is one of talent and luck. When war have been displaced since 2011, 4.8 million of them outside broke out in 1992, his family ended up in a refugee the country. ‘We are currently supporting over 500 people; camp near the western Croatian city of Rijeka. He was over 200 are fellows and 300-plus their dependents, and due to start high school and his mother took him to we are actively trying to find places for over 100 more,’ the nearest school, but they were told there was no says Wordsworth. provision for educating refugees. His mother eventually Cara has an established network of UK universities, now persuaded the director to let him attend, ‘I found out numbering 114, who have committed in principle to waiving after three years of being in that school that actually I fees and providing employment opportunities to at-risk was there as a visitor and I wasn’t officially registered’ scholars. They work alongside the international organisation says Masic. The school specialised in communications or chemical Scholars at Risk (SAR), based at New York University in the technology and he was told to choose between the US, whose work assists academics facing severe human rights two. Thinking he might one day find work back at a abuses and attacks on academic freedom. SAR’s European refinery near his Bosnian village he chose chemistry, director Sinead O’Gorman says their case load has also at which he quickly excelled. When his family left to dramatically increased. ‘We have over 500 cases on our list settle in Germany, he chose to stay in Croatia and finish at the moment, which is higher than ever before,’ she says. high school. He studied hard, winning a prestigious ‘We continue to receive large numbers of applications from Syria and Iraq, and now Turkey. Since the attempted coup I don’t identify myself as Bosnian, Italian in July, we have received over 150 applications from scholars or German now i n Tu rkey.’ national chemistry prize at 15. ‘I had motivation because I realised very quickly that we had lost our house, we Research in exile lost everything we owned – the only thing I could count Not all refugees are forced to flee their country. The 2014 on was who I was and what I could contribute,’ Masic war between the Ukrainian government and pro-Russian explains. ‘Building knowledge is something no one can insurgents has led to an estimated 1.4 million internal take from me, so this is where I needed to invest.’ refugees moving away from the parts of eastern Ukraine The support of Italian aid workers helped Masic now controlled by separatists. For academics at the Donetsk successfully apply for university in Turin, where he National University, this has meant a wholesale uprooting continued to excel. But as a refugee, his position was to a makeshift ‘university in exile’ in the city of Vinnytsia in always uncertain. He specialised in the development of west-central Ukraine. spectroscopic methods for archaeological conservation and co-founded a company providing scientific analysis About 50% of faculty who did not support the Donetsk to conservators. But without the correct visa he was People’s Republic chose to leave, including chemists eventually forced to leave Italy and in 2008 he moved to Yuliia Bespalko, Svitlana Zhyltsova and Oleksii Barybin. a post-doctoral position in Germany. With a successful ‘I remember the day – my colleagues and I were going home publication list, he joined MIT’s civil and environmental after work, and we saw armed men who were not part of the engineering department in 2015 to run his own group. usual authorities,’ Bespalko explains. ‘It was my point of no Looking back on his experiences, Masic says the return and, since then, I haven’t gone back to the university struggles he faced as a refugee were important in in Donetsk.’ Zhyltsova was also shocked when the conflict shaping his academic career. In Croatia, refugees were reached the university. ‘As soon as I’d understood that many segregated and suffered discrimination. ‘But that was of my colleagues didn’t want to protest against such events, incredible fuel and motivation for my career,’ he says. His experiences have also shaped his identity. Having to my decision was not difficult. I couldn’t [face seeing] armed leave Italy was a huge disappointment. ‘I was perfectly people, not only in the streets of Donetsk but also in my integrated – I was more Italian than anything else,’ he own university.’ says. ‘I don’t identify myself as Bosnian, Italian or German The new university in exile was opened in an old jewellery [now] – I really consider myself beyond borders.’ It may factory in November 2014, but there were early problems, be that he now identifies most strongly as a scientist as Zhyltsova explains. ‘When we came to our new building and engineer. ‘Through all the difficulties there was in Vinnytsia, the labs were even without electricity.’ something that was always there – the research I was able Barybin agrees. ‘There was nothing in Vinnytsia except the to contribute,’ Masic reflects. academics. We left Donetsk with only our home belongings,

22 OCTOBER 2016 REFUGEES FEATURE © Donetsk National University National © Donetsk Image courtesy of Yuliia Bespalko Yuliia of courtesy Image

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so there was no place for anything from our offices.’ Plus, research area to something theoretical or related to computer 1. Yulia Bespalko at those who remained prevented them from taking anything experiments.’ He is hoping that collaborating with other Donetsk National University, before from the university in Donetsk. ‘We couldn’t take any scientists might help him move forward. she left equipment or reagents,’ says Bespalko. Bespalko has been able to continue her work as part of a 2. The new chemistry Financial support comes from the Ukrainian government, project funded by the International Renaissance Foundation, department of the exiled university in but resources are scarce given the difficult economic situation. a fund set up specifically to support Ukraine. In November Vinnytsia has over ‘Our colleagues from the medical university in Vinnytsia and 2015, she visited the lab of nanochemist Steven De Feyter at 100 students our alumni and sponsors from different organizations have the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium to work with helped our faculty with equipment, chemicals and glassware,’ him on self-assembled materials including covalent organic says Zhyltsova. The university back in Donetsk continues to framework synthesis, and hopes to continue the collaboration. run, but Barybin says he is not sure how many students are The move to Vinnytsia has not been easy for the university still attending. He has contact with one or two old colleagues staff, although none felt they had any other option. While but speaks to them rarely. most were able to come with their immediate families, some In exile, the university is again teaching students – from have been divided from relatives. ‘The thing that is now undergraduates to PhDs. ‘The situation with students is difficult for me is that my parents-in-law are still living there similar to that of university teachers. On average, about and we can’t see each other as often as before,’ says Zhyltsova. 50% of students moved,’ says Barybin. Those already It is currently possible to visit Donetsk with the appropriate living outside the territories now occupied by the Donetsk documents from the Ukrainian security services and Barybin People’s Republic found it easiest to move. The new says from time to time they are able to meet with family chemistry department has about 135 students and there are who remained. approximately 300 studying physics, although about 20% are The future political situation in eastern Ukraine is unclear. studying remotely. ‘Last year we had the first graduation of 2015 saw a ceasefire, but violence still continues and the students and it was a small victory for the whole university separatists still control a large part of eastern Ukraine. When we family’ says Bespalko. Returning does not currently seem like an option for those came to our Although their teaching labs are running, continuing who left. ‘I can only go back home if the Donetsk People’s new building with research has not been easy for the scientists without Republic disappears,’ says Zhyltsova. ‘But I don’t know when in Vinnytsia, access to their own specialised labs and equipment. ‘If I it will happen.’ Barybin worries that even after liberation, the labs can receive the reagents and equipment I need, I’d like to there is the likelihood that separatists with illegal weapons will were without continue my own research,’ explains Zhyltsova, who works make the region unsafe. The new university is committed to electricity in the field of polymer composites. ‘But if in the next couple continuing in exile at least until the end of the conflict, and of years they are still unreachable, I will have to change the the ability to continue and rebuild an institution together is type of research I do,’ she adds. Barybin, whose work was rare for refugees. ‘We are in the unique situation that the staff in hydrodynamics, has similar problems without his own of the university, which has over 75 years of history, has a lab and is also looking for a solution. ‘I want to change my chance to start all over again,’ says Bespalko.

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Kassem Alsayed Syrian scientists defect and left for Turkey, eventually getting a visa to Qatar. Chemists and Laboratory Managers... Mahmoud left Syria after Organisations like Cara and SAR are working hard to support Not all of his family managed to escape. In 2012 his brother being forced to join the army. He is now working refugees from Syria – including food scientist Kassem was killed by the regime along with 400 others in a massacre in a lab in Belgium Alsayed Mahmoud. In August 2015, he began a one-year in Deir Ez-Zor. The rest of his family are now spread around postdoctoral fellowship at the Laboratory of Food Technology Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, but he is alone in Europe. and Engineering at Ghent University in Belgium and he has ‘I cannot easily visit or invite my family or even my fiancée now started another one-year position at the Free University to come here to Europe,’ Alsayed Mahmoud says. ‘The of Brussels. administrative procedures to get a visa are complicated and ‘After leaving Syria in October 2012 because of the may be impossible’. personal threat from Assad’s forces, I tried to find any job in The situation in universities back in Syria is now intolerable. Turkey or in Qatar,’ Alsayed Mahmoud explains. ‘It was so ‘There is no real education and scientific work. When you do difficult because of the language barrier in Turkey and the not have water, food, medicine, school for your children and absence of any vacancy in my field in Qatar’s universities and security, you are not able to think about your research,’ says 2nd & 3rd November 2016 companies.’ Friends told him about SAR and they helped him Alsayed Mahmoud. ‘Many students, in particular the young secure the Ghent position, funded by the university and SAR. males, have also been killed by Assad’s forces, forced to leave WWEM the UK’s leading event for Analytical Chemists Academic life in Syria before the war was not ideal, says the country or become involved in the war,’ he adds. Three and Laboratory Managers involved with Water and Alsayed Mahmoud. All universities and institutions suffered of the five government universities are closed or displaced to Environmental Analysis. from bureaucracy, corruption, intimidation and security another city, and most of the scientific staff are gone – either Meet the leading Laboratory manufactures at the service intervention. As is so often the case, the lack of killed, arrested or forced to leave. WWEM exhibition, attend over 60 free workshops freedom was a problem for scientific research and those who Alsayed Mahmoud is in contact with many of his Syrian on case studies and applications. were scientifically successful had usually studied abroad. colleagues who are all trying to leave the country to find The 7th International Originally from the city of Deir Ez-Zor in eastern Syria, safety for themselves and their families. Those who have Conference and Exhibition Alsayed Mahmoud completed his PhD in France, studying already left are in neighbouring countries or have been able on water, wastewater food processing and biotechnology in Nancy, where he to return to the countries were they had previously studied. and environmental monitoring worked until 2009. On returning to Syria he set up his own ‘Most of us are struggling to find jobs in the host country. lab specialising in edible oils, but he was forced into the army It is a big problem for many reasons: our status as refugees after a year, even as a 38-year-old academic. or migrated people, the language for those who are in a After the revolution and the war broke out, and after having new country, and the gap in our CVs because of the crisis,’

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The challenges of life as a refugee Chemistry of Society © Royal For refugee scientists who have found scientific positions, the struggle is not over. ‘It is not easy for anyone who lost everything to start his life from zero in another country’ says Alsayed Mahmoud. He has found the university and people of Ghent welcoming, but explains that despite doing their best to provide support and understand his situation, ‘you cannot feel the real tragedy if you did not live with the event’. Alsayed Mahmoud has spoken widely about his personal experience as a refugee, but for other refugees, this is often not the case. John Krebs recalls that his father didn’t talk about the Nazi period or his feelings at being forced to leave Germany, ‘It was only when I read his autobiography that I came to realise what he had been through. It is remarkable that a man The scale of the aged 33, brought up as a loyal German citizen (his family were response is not assimilated Jews), and then summarily dismissed from his job, proportionate was able to overcome the trauma of dislocation and continue to the problem, with his life’s passion of scientific research.’ so we are Krebs says his father soon felt at home in his new country, asking national but this isn’t the case for all refugee scientists. According to governments to Cara, historically many felt socially dislocated. Today, says scale up their Wordsworth, ‘it varies enormously from case to case in terms efforts of what they have been through when they left. Sometimes when you read the case histories and then you meet the person you are surprised by how normal they seem, considering their experiences.’ In practical terms, O’Gorman thinks the biggest immediate challenges are usually language-related – and universities usually provide language training, as well as academic and pastoral mentors to provide support. One surprise is that many of the academics seeking help do not see themselves as refugees; so much so that Cara removed the term from its name in 2014. ‘We have got away from the refugee label,’ explains Wordsworth. ‘Many of the fellows we were helping felt that they hadn’t abandoned their countries, they had had to leave, but fully intended to go back when they could.’ O’Gorman agrees: ‘That has particularly been the case with scholars from Iraq and Syria, in that they are very eager to be a part of the post-conflict reconstruction in their home countries when the time comes.’ 1 The European response While Cara reports strong support from UK universities, their of German Scholars Abroad in Zurich and London. The response to the Syrian crisis seems somewhat measured. A initiative will fund 20 refugee researchers for two years. number of UK universities are offering student scholarships Germany has also funded 271 Syrian Masters and PhD and postdoctoral fellowships, including the universities of students, administered by the German Academic Exchange Sheffield, Warwick, York and East London. Others are Service (DAAD). ‘We received over 5000 applications which working with Cara to find positions for specific refugee was quite surprising – we estimated it would be about 1000,’ academics. In 2015, the European Union launched a initiative says programme head Christian Hülshörster. Given that by called Science4Refugees, to help link refugee scientists 2016, 200,000-plus Syrian refugees had arrived in Germany, and researchers to universities with available positions (see DAADs efforts have shifted to support German universities to Chemistry World, August 2016, p8). O’Gorman says it’s ‘a step educate and integrate those who want to study. in the right direction’. But the focus is also on providing assistance to Syria’s While the UK government has not yet provided any specific neighbouring countries, who are sheltering the majority of support for refugee academics or students, the German refugees. The EU has set up the €40 million (£35 million) government has stepped forward. This is with their own Madad fund to support refugees in these countries, including history in mind, as foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier a €1 million education project launched in April 2016, explained in 2015. ‘In a small way, we also work to repay other administered by DAAD, the British Council and several other countries for what they did for German researchers in exile European organisations. many decades ago,’ he said. July 2016 saw the launch of the Cara has also recognised the need to create programmes Philipp Schwartz Initiative, named after the Jewish pathologist nearer the conflict region. In 2006, after the Iraq war, who fled Nazi Germany and founded the Emergency Society they launched a regionally based initiative to partner Iraqi

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1. Hans Krebs had to researchers with UK academics to work on a wide range the beginning our founders saw the task as being twofold leave Nazi Germany of projects. ‘We are now looking at how we can use that – as providing relief from suffering, but also the defense of in the 1930s, but did Nobel prize-winning experience to support Syrian academics in the surrounding learning and science – saving the people, but also what they work at the University countries,’ says Wordsworth. At MIT, Masic is also carried in their heads for the benefit of the world as a whole,’ of Sheffield looking at how online tools developed by the university says Wordsworth. 2. It is with something of its own history in could be re-purposed to support remote learning for ‘Science of course helped me to find a safe place,’ agrees mind that Germany is displaced populations. Alsayed Mahmoud, but he says now he hopes one day to use welcoming so many O’Gorman and SAR are hoping more will be done for his skills to help others in need. He dreams of returning to refugees today’s refugee academics. ‘The scale of the response is Syria to rebuild. ‘I hope, as do all Syrian people, that this day not proportionate to the problem, so we are asking national will come very soon, because there is no mother like your

governments to consider scaling up their efforts.’ Wordsworth mother as there is no home as your home.’ © Kerstin Joensson / AP/Press Association Images suggests learned societies might consider stepping in to sponsor an academic in their field. In the meantime, Mahmoud has Rachel Brazil is a science writer based in London, UK created the Syrian Academics Organization and has started gathering a database of Syrian academics and students around the world to help them to find a host university. Donations to The Sir Hans Krebs Trust can be sent to 24 It may be the international nature of science that has enabled Balliol Court, Rutherway, Oxford, OX2 6QZ, UK. Donations can be made to the Council for At-Risk refugee scientists to find routes out of danger, now and in the Academics at www.cara.ngo, where more information past. But organisations like Cara have always seen their role can also be found as not only saving individuals but also saving science.’ Since