Vice-Chancellor's message to staff and students about the situation in Gaza

Watch the Vice-Chancellor's message on YouTube

Dear Colleagues and students 

As Vice-Chancellor of this great university, blessed with a vibrant and diverse community, I wanted to personally acknowledge that these are deeply troubling times. 

I know that many of you are hurting and I specifically wanted to outline what the University is already doing and what it hopes to do – with your support – in responding to the horror at events in Gaza. 

It is clear that our focus and energies should be on what we can do together to make a difference.  

I have maintained throughout this conflict that as an academic community we should all recognise the need for civility, tolerance and willingness to come together in open dialogue with respect, empathy and understanding. 

This is not easy – we have all been tested – but I know we can get through this challenging period and learn from it. 

I was personally grateful for the very respectful, courteous and constructive dialogue we had at Congregation on Tuesday [28 May 2024] – an exemplar of how to have discourse: thank you to those colleagues who brought their questions to us, and we welcome further dialogue informally or formally through our usual processes and channels. 

A key element of that Congregation meeting focused on the concerns raised around our investments. As was laid out, we already set a high bar for our investments, and I have asked my team to remain vigilant to ensure our conditions continue to be met. As a result of that Congregation meeting, I have also asked that we explore further ways to share more data on where the money goes, so that our community can be reassured.

At Congregation, it was also clearly evident that collectively, as an educational institution, it is especially hard to see the destruction of universities. 

That is why I have been focusing our initial efforts on four keys areas: scholarships, fellowships, provision of research materials and online courses, and the deployment of teaching content.

On scholarships: as a University of Sanctuary, we have expanded our scholarships for displaced people over recent years. But there is more we can and must do, and I am committed we do so in directly helping Palestinian students. 

We have current offer holders of Palestinian nationality, some already have scholarships through our sanctuary scholarships; and we have been reaching out to prospective donors to see if we can support more offer holders for the upcoming academic year. 

Looking ahead, we are working on a collegiate University crisis scholarship scheme for students normally resident in Gaza and the West Bank for admission in 2025–26. As a first step, I have asked colleagues to convene a workshop on 7 June at which the University and colleges will design a model for our Palestinian scholarships scheme. We will then reach out to colleges and external funders for support. We are in dialogue with foundations that may offer support. 

On fellowships: to support academics-at-risk, we have earlier this year increased our Cara [the Council for At-Risk Academics] subscription to support their operations, and committed further funding for fellowships for this year. 

We'd like to do more to support academics-at-risk and students from Gaza, and through Tom Fletcher, Principal at Hertford College, and his contacts in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and in the region, we are planning to support their efforts on the ground in terms of needs – guided by them regarding what is possible and requested. 

On the provision of teaching and researching materials: we recognise that our online library services and courses are a route by which we can immediately help, and fantastic colleagues in GLAM led by Richard Ovenden are looking to offer 'scan and deliver' opportunities to openly share collections and resources with scholars and students in Gaza and the West Bank. 

On the deployment of teaching content: we have an incredible asset in the resources of Oxford University Press, and they are willing to work through their charitable partners to supply print and online resources to students and academics as they have done in other crisis. 

But this is just a start. 

Many of our academics and departments have strong pre-existing links with academics in Gaza. We are mapping out these existing links, aided by our International Office, to look at how we might collectively support rebuilding, including through crisis education.  

Across all of this work, we need to come together as a community, and I want to welcome our departments, colleges and individual colleagues to please come forward and contribute to our collective efforts. As the central University in Wellington Square, we cannot deliver alone. The scale of the challenge facing Gaza is immense, and our response needs to be a collective collegiate University response.

Thank you all for everything you are doing to support our core mission, and for your deep concern for the wider geopolitical situation and how we might help within the bounds of our charitable status and as a collegiate University. 

Thank you and stay well.