The Universtitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) launches a scholarship programme for refugee students from Ukraine

For the next academic year, the UAB is trying to ensure that all refugees coming from Ukraine can continue to pursue their university studies. Besides waiving tuition fees for refugees, the UAB has launched a scholarship programme to cover the costs relating to studies such as course materials, travel or technology.

In order to get the funds needed for these scholarships, the university has prepared a crowdfunding campaign calling on the educational community to express solidarity with the future students in their faculties. Using a digital platform, those interested in contributing can make a donation, which can be recurrent or one-off.

The UAB, a refuge university

The initiative ‘Beques #UABRefugi’ is framed under the Reception Programme for people in need of refuge put in place by the Fundació Autònoma Solidària and that works towards ensuring the rights of forcefully displaced people. This scholarship programme was started in 2019, with a first crowdfunding campaign that raised 13,174 Euro. These solidarity funds started to be distributed during the 2019-2020 academic year and have been maintained to this day.

With plans to welcome more refugee students than in previous years, because of the war in the Ukraine, the Fundació Autònoma Solidària has engaged in a new crowdfunding campaign aiming at raising 20,000 Euro; so far, 2,000 Euro have been collected from 40 contributions.

The Ukraine on campus

In light of this humanitarian emergency, the UAB has reaffirmed its commitment with extraordinary emergency funds and has increased its budgetary allocation for the #UABRefugi scholarships. Since the war broke out, according to the UNHCR one third of Ukraine’s population has had to flee their home and up to 6 million people have left the country seeking refuge.