World Refugee Day 2025

Every 20 June, we celebrate World Refugee Day. This international day was designated by the United Nations to commemorate refugees around the globe.

World Refugee Day honours the strength and courage of people who have been forced to flee their home country to escape conflict or persecution. This year’s theme is “Solidarity with refugees”, encouraging countries, institutions and citizens to champion refugees’ right to seek safety, build support for their inclusion and advocate for solutions (UNHCR). 

Widening access to and inclusion in higher education for under-represented groups is one of Arqus major goals. The Alliance has always been very committed to enabling refugees and students at risk. Since the beginning of the initiative, a task force was set up with the aim of developing inclusive strategies to dismantle barriers in higher education and strengthen academic opportunities for refugee students and researchers.

Following the UN Sustainable Development Goals principle of “Leaving no one behind”, the Arqus Alliance has developed inclusive strategies to increase the number of asylum seekers and refugees able to continue their studies or academic careers across Europe and thus make refugee students more visible in the higher education sector.

After years of hard work of the Arqus Inclusion and Diversity Hub in collaboration with the associate partner, the National University of Kyiv – Mohyla Academy (NaUKMA), the Arqus Action Plan to support students and scholars at risk – with a focus on Ukraine was finalised in 2023.

Financed through the Arqus Innovation Fund, two bottom-up initiatives have contributed as well to the inclusion of refugees and students at risk at Arqus universities:

“Implementing academic freedom for responsible internationalisation in Arqus”

Coordinated by the University of Padua, this initiative has brought together the universities of Graz, Leipzig, Maynooth, Padua, Vilnius and Kyiv Mohyla Academy, and members of the Scholars At Risk (SAR) network.

This project has collaborated in the organisation of Padua’s Student Advocacy Day events in 2024 and 2025, with students, academics, professional staff, activists and institutional representatives discussing academic freedom, raising awareness and sharing experiences.

The initiative “Implementing academic freedom for responsible internationalisation in Arqus” has carried out an in-depth research effort over the past year, developing a comprehensive analysis of how academic freedom is defined and framed at the European level. The result is a detailed research report that offers a clear, accessible, and critical overview of the current normative framework on academic freedom. It also offers practical insights for universities within the Arqus Alliance—and beyond—on how they can more effectively protect and promote academic freedom in an increasingly complex international context.

“An Alliance supporting refugees’ right to a qualified and unique study experience” 

This initiative aims to organise a day of reflection on refugee students at each partner university, combining the film screening of the documentaries “When you can’t go back” and “Refugee Girls”, with the discussion, testimonials and presentation of each university’s measures to include refugee students.

The events started in March 2025 and have counted on the participation of project manager Elisa Gamba and film director Leonardo Cinieri Lombroso. Both documentaries deal with the experiences of refugee students at European universities. So far, film screenings and discussions have been organised at the universities of Maynooth, Wrocław, Graz, Padua and Lyon 1, with the rest of Arqus universities joining in the next academic year.

These bottom-up initiatives reflect Arqus values and goals: academic freedom, respect for diversity and human rights, solidarity, barrier-free cooperation, interculturality and the role of universities as open places of freedom, pluralism, and democratic participation.