UB offers Remote SAR Fellowships of variable duration up to one year, specifically for scholars at risk who cannot relocate to the US but whose engagement with UB would be mutually beneficial.
The UB SAR Fellowship Program is administered by the Office of International Education (OIE), in collaboration with the deans and an inter-decanal Selection Committee.
The Remote Fellowship may involve:
Nominations for SAR Remote Fellowships are accepted on a rolling basis.
OIE will help coordinate volunteer appointments, but there will be no central financial commitment.
The fellowship serves several purposes. It provides humanitarian assistance to scholars who are at risk in their own countries due to their work as academics, while it raises awareness at UB about threats to academic freedom around the world. At the same time, the fellowship brings highly qualified scholars to UB to address faculty needs and advance the university’s research, teaching and service missions.
Suitably qualified academics from any country with terminal degrees and a strong record of scholarship and teaching who are threatened in their home countries and thus unable to continue their academic careers.
The deans formally nominate scholars for the fellowship and thus consideration by the Selection Committee; however, anyone in the UB community—faculty, staff or students—may nominate a scholar to the appropriate host school for consideration by the dean.
The Scholar Search process is an alternative to nominating a specific scholar for the fellowship; it involves identifying faculty needs that might be addressed by an SAR Fellow. Once the deans submit a Scholar Search request, OIE coordinates with UB’s international partners, SAR and IIE-SRF, to identify potential candidates that fit the dean’s criteria—typically from the portfolios of scholars already vetted by these organizations.
Yes, though provision for a scholar’s family will impact a number of considerations—the immigration process, funding package, and housing arrangements, among others.
These well-established partner organizations play three key roles—they help identify suitably qualified scholars that fit UB’s faculty needs; (2) educate the UB community about threats to scholars and to academic freedom around the world; and (3), in the case of IIE-SRF, provide funding support to the scholar on top of what UB provides.
SAR fellows will raise awareness of the threats to academic freedom experienced by scholars in many countries today.
The qualifications are generally the same for a remote SAR fellowship; the difference is that the scholar is unable to relocate to the US and will thus collaborate with UB counterparts through some remote modality.
John J. Wood
Senior Associate Vice Provost
Office of International Education
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