Bereichsbild
Contact

Heidelberg University
Heidelberg Alumni International
Phone: +49 6221 54-3489
Fax: +49 6221 54-2091
research@alumni.uni-heidelberg.de

Heidelberg Alumni International

 
Further Information

Philipp Schwartz Initiative

Humboldt Kosmos – magazine of the Humboldt Foundation about researchers turned refugees

Press release about Henri Jarecki (Ger)

 
SEARCH

Fellowships for threatened researchers

The Philipp Schwartz Initiative allows German colleges, universities and research institutions to host threatened researchers with a full fellowship for a period of 24 months. In the first two application rounds of the initiative, which the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation launched in December 2015 with the support of the Federal Foreign Office, fellowships were granted to a total of 69 researchers. Most of these scholars applying for asylum in Germany after fleeing war or persecution in their home countries hail from Turkey and Syria. Within the framework of the initiative, Heidelberg University has so far been able to support two female researchers and one male researcher with a fellowship. Additional institutions and fellows will be selected for funding in a third application round that ends in mid-2017.

The initiative is named after Jewish physician Philipp Schwartz, who narrowly escaped arrest in 1933 and founded the ‘Notgemeinschaft deutscher Wissenschaftler im Ausland’ (Emergency Association of German Scientists Abroad) after his escape. ‘Our aim is to give people in need a perspective. In this way, we want to recognise what other countries did for German researchers in exile decades ago’, explained Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the then Foreign Secretary, at the launch of the initiative in late 2015.

In the first round, the initiative allocated funding for 23 fellowships starting in the summer of 2016 and selected 18 universities and research institutions to host one or more researchers. This brought art historian Nargis Tashpulatova from Uzbekistan and archaeologist Tarek Ahmad from Syria to Heidelberg University. Following the second application round, the Philipp Schwartz Initiative has been supporting 46 new fellows at 39 host institutions since January 2017. Heidelberg University was able to welcome a female physician from Iraq as a new fellow. The third application round ends on 21 April 2017.

Gespräche an den Informationsständen

Photo: Rothe

Awarding the Federal Cross of Merit to Henri G. Jarecki

The Philipp Schwartz Initiative is supported by Heidelberg alumnus and Honorary Senator Dr Henri G. Jarecki, who was awarded the German National Order of Merit in November 2016 in recognition of (among other things) his outstanding work in promoting the sciences and humanities in Germany. The 83-year-old psychiatrist and his family emigrated from Germany to the United States during the Second World War. A friend of Heidelberg University since his days as a medical student here in the 1950s, Henri Jarecki supports the sciences at his alma mater with the Max Jarecki Foundation. He is co-founder of the Scholar Rescue Fund in New York, which enables persecuted researchers to continue their work in safe countries, and also supports the Philipp Schwartz Initiative in the same context.

Email: Editor
Latest Revision: 2017-03-01
zum Seitenanfang/up