In honor and memory of Dr. Vartan Gregorian’s lifelong work to promote global peace, expand access to international education, and preserve the lives and work of threatened scholars, as well as his service on the IIE Board of Trustees, IIE launched the “Vartan Gregorian Research Grants in the IIE Scholar Rescue Fund” in 2022.
Three IIE-SRF partners were selected to receive grants of up to $25,000 to help fund original research or other projects that deepen our knowledge of the threats faced by academics in diverse contexts across the globe and/or that explore innovative ideas for supporting these scholars.
IIE-SRF solicited proposals from individuals belonging to the IIE-SRF Alliance that broadly explored the displacement of academics or attacks on higher education and scholarly inquiry worldwide, including the factors that lead to such attacks or their effects. Relevant issues included those in the context of targeted threats against academia and academics or protracted conflict and higher education emergencies. The projects were undertaken with an aim to producing published articles or other scholarly content and/or to address a problem related to the program theme.
With the IIE-SRF Vartan Gregorian Research Grants, we honor Dr. Gregorian’s legacy and the dedication and commitment of IIE-SRF’s many partners who are critical to our work to provide practical support to threatened and displaced scholars.
Recipients
Three recipients were announced as the grantees of the Vartan Gregorian Research Grants on April 8, 2022, on what would have been Dr. Gregorian’s 88th birthday. Below is information about their research projects and outcomes.
Yasmine Ergas: “Toward an Early Warning System for Attacks on the Gender Academy”
Yasmine Ergas is Senior Lecturer and Director of the Gender & Public Policy Specialization of the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. She was formerly Director of Columbia’s Institute for the Study of Human Rights, where she hosted several IIE-SRF fellows from China. Her current research addresses the emergence of a global market in reproductive services, the rise of illiberal democracy, and the current backlash against gender equality.
Ergas utilized her IIE-SRF Vartan Gregorian Research Grant to identify signs of impending attacks on gender studies that might be used to develop an “early warning system.” She and her research team analyzed data from social media in Brazil and Colombia to perform sentiment analysis on posts mentioning “gender” and “gender ideology.” She shared the results of her research at a side event of the UN Women’s Commission on the Status of Women and in a presentation at Columbia University. Ergas aims to prepare a publication and convene a meeting of scholars and advocates to discuss these issues in 2024. Her earlier research on illiberal attacks on gender studies programs that informed and inspired this project is published here.
Nandini Ramanujam: “Academic Freedom in a Plural World: Global Critical Perspectives”
Dr. Nandini Ramanujam is the Co-Director and Program Director of the Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism at McGill University’s Faculty of Law, where she has hosted IIE-SRF fellows from Iran and Russia. Her research and teaching interests include law and development, institutions and governance, economic justice, food security and food safety, the role of civil society and the fourth estate (media) in promotion of the rule of law, and the interconnections between field-based human rights work and theoretical discourses.
Ramanujam used the IIE-SRF Vartan Gregorian Research Grant to develop an edited book with co-author Frédéric Mégret that re-imagines, defends, and critiques the theoretical foundations of academic freedom, identifies what threatens academic freedom, and assesses ways to safeguard it in the 21st century. The book, Academic Freedom in a Plural World: Global Critical Perspectives, will be published by Central European University Press in April 2024. The volume brings together 24 chapters by 28 authors from 12 countries across 5 continents to provide a diversity of theoretical and experiential outlooks. In addition to the publication, the grant was used to convene an in-person workshop for the contributors to meet each other, use their peers as sounding boards, and breakdown discipline and geography-based silos that limit the discourse on academic freedom.
Mehrzad Boroujerdi: “Plight of Threatened Afghan and Iranian Scholars”
Dr. Mehrzad Boroujerdi is the Vice Provost and Dean of the College of Arts, Sciences, and Education at Missouri University of Science and Technology. Previously, he worked at Syracuse University and hosted multiple IIE-SRF fellows from Iran. As a political scientist and public intellectual, Boroujerdi frequently comments on topics involving Iran, including the recent “Women, Life, Freedom” movement.
Boroujerdi’s grant project investigated the factors that have compelled large numbers of Afghan and Iranian academics to leave their home countries and the challenges they face in their host countries. His research was grounded in an extensive literature review and personal interviews with displaced scholars. The results were published by the Social Science Research Network, available here.
About Dr. Vartan Gregorian
Dr. Vartan Gregorian was a steadfast advocate for education and the protection of academic freedom. Originally from Iran and born to Armenian parents, he earned his Ph.D. at Stanford University and went on to share his expertise on European and Middle Eastern history with multiple U.S. universities as an academic and administrative leader. Dr. Gregorian served as president of the New York Public Library for nearly a decade in the 1980s until returning to academia as president of Brown University. As president of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, which made the founding grant to IIE in 1919, Dr. Gregorian was an unwavering supporter of IIE-SRF’s work. He served on the IIE Board of Trustees and remained deeply involved in the work of IIE-SRF after his tenure.
“Vartan made the world a better place through his unwavering commitment to preserving academic freedom, rescuing threatened scholars, and promoting international peace. IIE is privileged to support these inaugural IIE-SRF Vartan Gregorian fellows, each of whom are eminent scholars and long-standing partners to IIE-SRF. Their research projects will honor Vartan’s legacy by furthering our understanding of the threats facing our colleagues around the world and by increasing our collective ability to help.” – IIE CEO Dr. Allan Goodman
