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Responding to humanitarian crises: the art of the possible
In this blog, Professor Nick Gill (Professor of Human Geography, University of Exeter and Universities of Sanctuary) and Aleks Palanac (Head of Sanctuary, University of Leicester) outline the barriers to accessible higher education for individuals seeking sanctuary and explore what UK universities can do to support scholars in areas of conflict, beyond providing scholarships to study in the UK.
This topic will be explored in detail during their breakout session at International Higher Education Forum 2025. Don’t miss the opportunity to join Nick, Aleks and Haleema Masud for this insightful session.
Only 7% of the world's 110 million forcibly displaced people can access higher education in comparison to around 40% of the global population. Accessible education offers people seeking sanctuary hope, continuity and opportunities for recovery and growth.
Tertiary education, however, typically remains out of reach because of low secondary school graduation rates (particularly amongst girls), high fees, limited places, and lack of required academic certification. Even if access is secured, the impact of uncertain immigration status, psychological trauma, cultural barriers and unfamiliar teaching styles can perpetuate exclusion.
A growing international movement is seeking to address these injustices. The UNHCR's 15by30 campaign, which aims to increase the enrolment rate of eligible refugees into higher education to 15% by 2030, is encouraging universities to coordinate and mobilise in new and promising ways.
In the UK the Universities of Sanctuary movement exists to encourage and enable universities to offer welcome throughout teaching, research and beyond, and develop meaningful and holistic responses to the challenge of forced migration.
Universities who are demonstrably committed to these objectives can achieve accreditation from the network, and there are currently more than 35 Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) that have been awarded. All of these institutions offer two or more sanctuary scholarships for refugees on their degree programmes as part of their commitment to this work.
The Universities of Sanctury has an email discussion list, [email protected]. Sign up here.
Recent world conflicts have prompted the movement to evolve to examine other meaningful forms of support that can be offered, above and beyond UK campus-based scholarships. For example, the Ukraine conflict brought about an unprecedented wave of mobilisation among UK universities looking to find ways to support their counterparts in Ukraine. One development of this was the highly successful UK-Ukraine Twinning scheme between universities in the two countries.
Another more recent example is the move to support students trapped in Gaza via opportunities to study on distance learning programmes, to access trauma support, and to have their university fees sponsored so that they can continue to study at their home universities. These universities are in dire need of support, having all been severely damaged or destroyed over the past 19 months (see Friends of Birzeit University’s Partnerships with Palestine guide for further information about initiatives such as these).
The charity Mosaik is also in the process of developing a UK Universities Global Response Platform. This will be a mechanism through which universities can cooperate to provide critical support in response to international crises by sharing resources, and ensuring that responses are shaped by, and tailored to, affected communities1. This type of work contributes significantly to the call from the 15by30 campaign to support the capacity building of displaced peoples and institutions located in the Global South.
In order to meet the 15by30 target, we need to be confident that we have accurate data on how many of our students fall into the category of having been displaced. While this might be relatively straightforward where we offer discrete programmes to students based in contexts such as Gaza or Ukraine, this is typically more challenging on mainstream university programmes in the UK.
There is a data gap in the UK in relation to displaced students: universities do not include the number of displaced students in their HESA returns, which means that we only have anecdotal and incomplete data about completion rates, attainment scores, and even subjects studied. Given how important displaced students are to the HEI community, are we really doing enough? Reliable, regular data would help the sector ensure it is doing its best to secure the inclusion of some of the most disadvantaged people in society. This can be seen as part of universities’ mission to continue to widen access and improve inclusion – too often it is the most disadvantaged people who are the most invisible. That is why we need much better data.
A promising development in the UK context is that from the 2023 application cycle UCAS introduced a series of new questions in the UCAS application to flag a wider range of circumstances and support needs, including one on refugee and asylum seekers. This means that we are starting to be able to form a picture of the numbers of students affected by forced displacement in UK higher education for the first time. During the 2024 application cycle, 5,900 UCAS applicants declared a refugee status or humanitarian protection in the UK in their UCAS application, and 795 applicants declared that they were seeking asylum. Over 3,165 of these applicants were mature (over 21). A snapshot based on the 2023 data also revealed that displaced students are more likely to apply locally and have caring responsibilities.
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In our session at IHEF (International Higher Education Forum) 2025, Responding to humanitarian crises: the art of the possible we will explore this data. We will draw out some key trends, discussing some of their ramifications for how universities can best respond to the needs of students affected by forced displacement and acknowledge some of their limitations (and hence the continuing need for better data collection). We will also explore various mechanisms and initiatives through which universities can support displaced people in the UK and in the Global South.
In conclusion, these are the key ways in which universities in the UK can help to reach the UNHCR’s 15by30 target:
- Becoming sanctuaries for people who are already in the UK and wish to access education.
- Reaching beyond the UK in a coordinated way to improve access to education for people who have been displaced around the world.
- Keeping better and more accurate records to allow us to judge how effectively we are progressing towards our targets.
This session has come about because of the work of the UK Higher Education Humanitarian Working Group which works to advance, co-ordinate and catalyse support for forcibly displaced academics and students across UK higher education. One of their current projects aims to both understand the data available on displaced students better, and advocate for better data to be collected.
