From the first days of war it has been clear that the University of Bern would not remain unaffected. The university is concerned on many different levels. What does the war mean for students and researchers from Ukraine, in particular for those whose exchange schemes and contracts are about to expire? What would happen to our own exchange students at Russian universities (see the interview with Michèle Häfliger, at Kazan State University at the outbreak of war)? What to do about our scientific collaborations with Russia? And then, as refugees from Ukraine started to reach Switzerland, how could the university best support incoming students and academics?

To deal efficiently with this critical situation, the Rector initiated a task force (Arbeitsgruppe Ukraine, AGU) in which all the relevant bodies of the university, such as the International Office and the Admissions Office, are represented, including also the Vice Rectors for Research and Development as well as members of the university who have ties with Ukraine. In this newsletter, you can meet two of them, Oksana Iamshanova and Ruslan Hlushchuk, who talk about the Ukrainian Society they founded. Oksana and Ruslan also mention how important it is for young people displaced by the war to have a perspective for continuing their education, in a situation in which they don’t know when they will be able to return to their own country.

Taking in students from Ukraine is certainly the biggest task facing the university. The university could accommodate the first batch by admitting them unbureaucratically as exchange students, but even this extempore measure required great efforts from the administration regarding counselling and registration. Ukrainian students have an educational background that differs in some respects from Swiss higher education, and most of them speak no or little German (see the interview with UniBE International intern Tetyana Fedorchuk who advises Ukrainian students). This presents quite a challenge, especially regarding bachelor students, as only few courses on BA level are offered in English. In addition to continuing with the exchange student model, the university is therefore preparing a ‘bridge year’ for freshers, which will include German language courses, an integration module and interdisciplinary courses. The aim is to prepare these students for regular enrolment at the university.

“The students who come to us from Ukraine, as well as from other countries ravaged by war, are eager to go on with their lives, but they also carry a heavy burden of loss and trauma.”

Virginia Richter

To support refugee students (not only from Ukraine) financially, the university has created a fund to which donations – for semester fees and other study-related expenses – are welcome. Administrative, financial and pedagogical aspects, however, are not the only ones to consider. We, the employees, teachers and fellow-students of the University of Bern, living in one of the safest and most stable countries in the world, can hardly imagine what it means to have experienced war, perhaps trying to prepare for an exam while listening to the detonation of bombs (for an inside impression from Kyiv, read the interview with our former PhD student Igor Tokarchuk). The students who come to us from Ukraine, as well as from other countries ravaged by war, are eager to go on with their lives, but they also carry a heavy burden of loss and trauma. Psychological and simple human help is as important as good study counselling.

The second group from Ukraine who need our support are academics displaced by the war. Often highly qualified, they can offer valuable contributions to the University of Bern’s research. Institutes and research centres can easily affiliate these scholars (as ‘assoziierte Forschende’), giving them access to basic infrastructure, but the question of funding can be difficult. The organisation Scholars at Risk (SAR) received an additional 9,000,000 Swiss francs from the SNSF, but huge as it may seem, this extra funding has already been used up. The university is proud that we have been able to employ four SAR scholars, but this is only a drop in the ocean in view of the many qualified refugees who are seeking our help. Currently, there are various bottom-up initiatives in progress to employ Ukrainian academics, financed jointly by the institutes, faculties and the university.

The students and academics who fled from Ukraine have a strong wish to return to their country as soon as possible. But nobody can tell whether this will be feasible within the next year. Flight may turn into exile. The refugees will need patience and endurance. This, conversely, is also true of their hosts and helpers in Switzerland. After a first spontaneous wave of great solidarity, we cannot allow ourselves to become indifferent to this war as it drags on, and callous to the plight of the refugees.

One of the qualities the university claims in the Strategy 2030 is that it acts with passion: we stand in with conviction for academic freedom, for an open and democratic society, and for fairness and respect. These values are being trampled under foot by Mr Putin’s army and secret service, in Ukraine but also in Russia itself. With the other Swiss universities, we stand united against Putin’s policy and therefore have halted co-operations with Russian institutions where they conflict with our principles, even at some cost for our own research projects. However, as Carmen Scheide, another member of AGU, states in her interview, our care must extend “to Russian researchers who are coming under pressure because they are expressing their solidarity with Ukraine”. We hope that those Russian scientists, teachers, writers, artists and diplomats who protest against the war at great personal risk will one day be the leaven that will transform Russian society for the better. Above all, we hope that the war will end in the near future and that Ukraine will emerge from it as the free nation it has already proved itself to be.

Text: Virginia Richter
Image: Virginia Richter