What we do

Cara - the Council for At-Risk Academics - has been working since 1933 to support academics at risk.

Our Fellowship Programme is a rescue mission for academics in immediate danger. Nearly 400 at-risk academics are now in placements, or are being helped through the process of finding a safe place to continue their work, with their families too.

Our regional programmes support individuals working on in their home countries despite the risks, and those in exile nearby.  They also work with higher education institutions whose work is at risk or compromised.  Our Syria Programme currently works with around 200 Syrian academics in exile, mostly in Turkey.

We also partner with other organisations, including with the British Academy in the 'Researchers at Risk' programme for Ukraine-based academics, which was launched in 2022 in response to the Russian invasion.  We now manage all the payments to nearly 180 grantees.

We are also participating in the EU's Inspireurope+ programme (2022-25), as the lead for Work Package 2, ‘Guidance for Researchers at Risk’.

In all that we do we honour the aim set out by our founders in 1933, “to prevent the waste of exceptional abilities exceptionally trained” - knowing how important such abilities are to the future of each country, and to the world.