'The Scholars of Ukraine’ receive Scholars at Risk 2024 Courage to Think Award

The award was presented at the SAR Global Congress on Wednesday, June 26th, at the European Humanities University (EHU) in Vilnius, Lithuania, recognizing the courage, resilience, and unwavering commitment of the ‘scholars of Ukraine’ to their teaching, research, students, and higher education institutions, despite the existential threat posed by war.

The Courage to Think Award was given by SAR to individuals, groups, or institutions that demonstrated an exemplary commitment to protecting scholars and promoting academic freedom, whether through their professional work, private or community service, often in the face of personal risk.

The award was received by a representative of Mariupol State University (MSU), symbolically representing all of the scholars of Ukraine, inside and outside of the country, who worked to maintain Ukraine’s higher education teaching and research sector. MSU had been operating from Kyiv since the destruction and fall of the city of Mariupol in February 2022, after having been displaced previously by the first Russian invasion in 2014.