Cara organises an annual lecture at The Royal Society, under the general heading of ‘Science and Civilisation’. The series takes its name from the title of lecture given by Albert Einstein in October 1933 at the Royal Albert Hall, at a major fundraising event on behalf of Cara and three other organisations who had come together as the ‘Refugee Assistance Fund’ to help those being expelled from Germany by the Nazis.

Seven recordings are currently available (the lecture originally planned for 2020 was held over until 2021, because of the Covid pandemic):

On 11 September 2023 the Royal Society and Cara, in place of the annual lecture, co-hosted a special evening of presentations followed by a reception, for some 200 guests, to mark Cara's 90th anniversary year. A full video recording is available on Cara's YouTube channel here, where separate recordings of the individual presentations are also available.
On Thursday 24 November 2022 Sir Jeremy Farrar FRS delivered Cara’s ninth Annual Science and Civilisation Lecture, taking as his theme, ‘Philanthropy and leadership in a changing world’. A full video recording is available on Cara’s YouTube channel here.
On Monday 25 October 2021 Professor Michael Ignatieff PC CM, Rector Emeritus of the Central European University, delivered Cara’s eighth Annual Science and Civilisation Lecture, taking as his theme, “Academic Freedom: Right or Privilege?” A full video recording is available on Cara’s YouTube channel here.
On Monday 28 October 2019 the distinguished philosopher and Cara Patron, Baroness Onora O’Neill of Bengarve, delivered Cara’s seventh Annual Science and Civilisation Lecture, taking as her theme, “Communication and Democracy in a Digital Age”.
On Monday 5 November 2018, Professor Margaret MacMillan delivered the sixth annual Cara ‘Science and Civilisation’ lecture, on “War and Society: the Impact of the First World War”.
On Wednesday 29 November 2017, Professor Timothy Garton Ash delivered the fifth annual Cara ‘Science and Civilisation’ lecture, on the theme, “Free Speech under Attack: the Case of Universities”.
On Monday 17 October 2016 Professor Dame Anne Glover FRS FRSE delivered the fourth annual Cara ‘Science and Civilisation’ lecture, on the theme, “And then they came for the experts”.

Cara History

On 12 May 2017 BBC Radio 4 broadcast a programme about Cara’s original ‘Assistant Secretary’, the redoubtable Esther (‘Tess’) Simpson. The broadcast is available on the BBC website, at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08pgm4b.A lengthy companion piece by the same journalist, David Edmonds, was published in the Jewish Chronicle, and is available on their website at https://www.thejc.com/news/news-features/esther-simpson-the-unknown-heroine-1.438317.

Cara 80th Anniversary Supplement, Cara & Times Higher Education (THE) (2013) Cara 80th Anniversary Supplement published in the Times Higher Education (THE) Issue 16-22 May 2013. The Supplement highlights 80 years of Cara’s support for persecuted academics told by grantees, affiliates, staff and Members of Council.

The Refuge and the Fortress: Britain and the Persecuted 1933-2013 (2nd Edition), Jeremy Seabrook, Palgrave Macmillan (2013)The Refuge and the Fortress offers an account of academic refugees in Britain, including those who fled Nazi Germany, and through their testimonies, seeks to understand the qualities they bestowed on their adoptive country. It provides an honest portrayal of the encounters of people from other cultures with the characteristics of the British.

In Defence of Learning: the plight, persecution, and placement of academic refugees 1933 – 1980s Marks, S., Weindling, P. and Wintour, L. (eds.) (2011) Oxford University Press for the British Academy Commissioned for Cara’s 75th anniversary conference, the papers collected in this volume cover both the history of the organisation and its impact on the academic world. They focus on some less well-known elements of Cara’s work, including scholars who contributed to the social sciences, exoduses of scholars from Pinochet’s Chile and apartheid South Africa, and the experiences of women academics. The volume includes, as well, moving accounts by children of early grantees.

In 1940 over 27,000 ‘enemy aliens’, including many academics who had been helped to escape from Nazism by the AAC/SPSL, were interned by the British Government. The SPSL mobilised to get them released again, working with four Tribunals set up by the Vice-Chancellors’ Committee, The Royal Society, The British Academy and The Royal Society of Medicine (RSM). A poster display about the RSM Tribunal’s work was created in 2017, and is available here.

Cara Archives

Cara’s history has been well preserved and is currently held in two separate archives. The first, covering the period from 1933 to the 1970s, is available at the Bodleian Library, Oxford. A partial digitalisation of the Bodleian archives, funded by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM), is now available to visitors. The second, with material from the 1970s onwards, is housed at the University of East London (UEL).

The archives offer a wealth of material for historians, biographers, political and social scientists etc.

Other Publications

Medicine, Conflict and Survival, Moore, M. and Brunskell-Evans, H (eds.) (2013) Volume 29, Issue 1, March, Special Issue: CARA Iraq Research Fellowship This Special Issue focuses on the work of the Cara Iraq Research Fellowship Programme (IRFP). This issue is one of a number of events and publications to mark Cara’s 80th year and it is particularly written to celebrate the achievement of teams of Iraqi scholars whose work focuses on matters related to medicine, conflict and survival.

The Art of Resistance: Defending Academic Freedom since 1933, Cara (2013) Several artists share their personal or family stories of exile in the auction publication. The full auction publication is available on line click here, or for sale at £20+pp (unsigned) or £40+pp for copies signed by Steven Appleby, Edmund de Waal, Maggi Hambling, Marcella Hanselaar, Hanaa Malallah, Jane McAdam Freud and Shelagh Atkinson.

Reimagining Research for Reclaiming the Academy in Iraq: Indentities and Participation in Post-Conflict Enquiry, Brunskell-Evans, H. and Moore, M. (eds.) (2012) Sense Publishers The book is a compilation of the narratives of Iraqi scholars who are carrying out numerous and diverse research projects that support the rebuilding of Iraqi society. The projects are funded and facilitated by Cara under the auspices the Iraqi Research Fellowship Programme (IRFP).

Scientist Spies: A Memoir of My Three Parents and the Atom Bomb, Paul Broda, Matador (2011) The Atom Bomb was crucial to a post-War world dominated by the Cold War. Yet the stories of the people who chose to give atom secrets to Russia has never fully been told. Paul Broda’s father and stepfather both passed secrets to the Russians, for no personal gain. Here he gives his personal account of his family and their actions. Scientist Spies is a compelling account of three lives swept up in the great events of Communism, Fascism, World War II, and the creation of the Atom Bomb.

Nazi Persecution: Britain’s rescue of academic refugees’, Kohn, R. (2011) European Review, vol. 19, no. 2, pp. 225-283 Drawing on Dr Kohn’s 2008 key note lecture launching Cara’s 75th anniversary conference, the article gives a fascinating and deeply moving account the heroic people who did so much to establish the work and support of Cara in 1933 (known then as the Academic Assistance Council). To request an offprint of this article, please contact Cara.

Talking about Jane Austen in Baghdad: the true story of an unlikely friendship, Rowlatt, B. and Witwit, M., Penguin Books (2010) May, an Iraqi lecturer on English literature at Baghdad University and Cara Fellow, and Bee, a BBC World Service journalist, first spoke in 2005, and their friendship developed through the exchange of long, funny, moving and very personal emails captured in this book.

Nazi persecution: Britain’s gift, Kohn, R. (2009) Royal Society and Cara. The text of the keynote lecture given by the late Dr Ralph Kohn in 2008, at Cara’s 75th anniversary conference. He eloquently described the persecution of scientists in Nazi Germany during the 1930s and illustrated the unique and dedicated work of those who helped them to find a safe haven in the UK.

Supporting Persecuted Academics – A Guide for Higher Education Institutions. Produced in 2009 with support from the Sigrid Rausing Trust and the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, the booklet draws on the reports, experience and testimonies of those participating in Cara’s 2006-2008 Pathfinder UK University Grants Scheme.

Useful Publications & Papers

Cara has a well documented history stretching back to 1933 that is available to researchers, scholars and the general public. A number of these reference papers and books were written by those academics involved in our establishment and provide a telling account.

A number of papers written by those whom Cara supported in the 30’s and 40’s, of which many became the most acclaimed academics of their time, are also available.

Click here to view or download a list. Please note, however, that this is by no means comprehensive and is rarely updated.