At the occasion of the international conference on Tertiary Education Pathways for Refugees taking place at the University of Bologna on 10-11 March 2022, participants and engaged stakeholders express their commitment to work towards common advocacy, strategies and design of operational frameworks to further expand and create higher education pathways for refugee youth in Europe, building on successful examples, such as the Italian UNICORE programme, the German DAAD Leadership for Syria and Africa and the Student Refugee Program (SRP) in Canada managed by WUSC.
This commitment is even stronger taking into account of the ongoing needs of Afghan refugees and the rapidly escalating war in Ukraine, with hundreds of thousands fleeing. This unprecedented situation will require universities, civil society and communities, to offer large scale refugee scholarships and support to arriving youth, to continue their education and rebuild their lives and futures.