Open Society University Network Launches Fellowships for Afghan Scholars and Professionals in the U.S., U.K., and Canada
ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, NY—Today, the Open Society University Network’s Threatened Scholars Integration Initiative (TSI) launched the Afghan Challenge Fund (ACF). This new fellowship program is designed to place newly arrived scholars and civil society professionals from Afghanistan in positions that are better suited to their talents and training. The goal is to help them thrive and make positive contributions to their host nations and to work towards a future democratic and pluralistic Afghanistan.
Supported by a $2 million grant from the Open Society Foundations, the ACF hopes to address the precarious conditions that often face Afghans who arrived in the West after the Taliban seized power in August 2021. Unfortunately, many of them can only find employment that does not correspond to their skills and expertise. To help, the ACF will offer incentives to universities and NGOs in the U.S., Canada, and the U.K. to hire them and put them in jobs that will benefit them and their communities.
“While the world’s attention has understandably shifted to the war in Ukraine, we don’t want to lose sight of Afghanistan,” said Thomas Keenan, director of Bard’s Human Rights Program and co-director of the Open Society University Network’s Threatened Scholars Integration Initiative. “Since last fall, thousands of brilliant scholars, analysts, advocates, and activists have fled Afghanistan for safe havens elsewhere, and we have not supported them enough as they seek to apply their talents to organizations here or to the future of their country. This new initiative seeks to address this by supporting these outstanding individuals through employment that utilizes their skills and experience and creates opportunities for new visions of a future Afghanistan to emerge.”
“Many highly accomplished Afghan women and men in the diaspora are being forced to abandon their professions in their search for employment,” said Shaharzad Akbar, Afghan human rights activist and former chairperson of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission. “The Challenge Fund is designed to help match these scholars, activists, and professionals with opportunities that align their passions and expertise, enabling them to preserve and expand on their skills, make direct and substantive contributions to the organizations that employ them, and build on their talents as assets for the future of Afghanistan.”
The ACF initiative will fund fellowships for scholars in universities, think tanks, and research institutions, and for civil society professionals working in media and journalism, arts and culture, public policy, international development, and women’s and human rights. Applications must be submitted by host institutions in partnership with the proposed fellow. ACF will partner with host institutions to pay up to half of fellows’ first-year salaries. The goal is to incentivize professional development and longer-term contracts for fellows.
To apply, potential fellows can visit the Open Society University Network website.
About the Open Society University Network (OSUN)
The Open Society University Network, cofounded by Bard College and Central European University with the support of the Open Society Foundations, is a global network of educational institutions that integrates learning and the advancement of knowledge—in the social sciences, the humanities, the sciences and the arts, on undergraduate and graduate levels—across geographic and demographic boundaries, promotes civic engagement on behalf of open societies, and expands access to higher education for underserved communities.