We Must Preserve Syria’s Scientific Assets

Scientist Amal Alachkar talks to Nature about the effects of civil war on research and education in Syria. "The regime is afraid of professors," says Alachkar, a fellow of IIE’s Scholar Rescue fund, which provides fellowships abroad to faculty who are threatened in their home countries, "[It] will fall sooner or later, but the country will have to be rebuilt. There is no chance to move our country forward without intellectual power." When asked what can be done to help, Alachkar answers, "If each university abroad could support just one [scholar], thousands of minds would be saved. The IIE is also working on a distance-learning programme for students in refugee camps."

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