The Refugee Academy is an initiative of Halleh Ghorashi & Elena Ponzoni (started in 2016) that aims to build a bridge between science and society around refugee issues by contributing to improving the societal conditions for sustainable inclusion of refugees.
The Refugee Academy strives to achieve this by creating new and closer connections as a platform between social initiatives, policy, scientific research and the perspective of refugees themselves. This is based on the conviction that a combination of an inclusive approach with long-term capacity sharing is necessary to achieve real impact. The Refugee Academy is currently started with a small funding from the university. The award of the Brouwer Prize for Science and Society to this initiative means on the one hand recognition for the work done, and on the other hand the opportunity to further expand the activities of the Refugee Academy.