Gaza support

We aim to have a number of scholarships that Gazan students can apply for: 

• British Council HESPAL scholarships – in partnership with the British Council, we will be offering a total of 4 full campus-based scholarships over the next three years. This will include 3 Master’s and 1 PhD scholarship. The application deadline for a September 2025 start is 28th February 2025. Further information and the link to the application form is available on the HESPAL web page.
• Gaza sanctuary scholarships – we are offering 4 further full scholarships to Gazan students to study with us on campus. This will include 3 Master's and 1 Undergraduate scholarship. We have already awarded two of these scholarships in 2024-5, and are looking to award the remaining two in September 2025. Please note that we are not taking direct applications for this scholarship. If you would like to be considered for this scholarship and/or scholarships for Gazan students at other universities (in the UK and/or other countries), please apply for support via the Gaza Scholarship Initiative for Displaced Students' application form.
• Saïd Foundation Scholarships - we are one of the UK universities that accepts students from Palestine, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon via the Saïd Foundation Scholarship for one-year taught Master's programmes. Further information and application links can be found on our Saïd Foundation Scholarship webpage (but please note that applications for September 2025 entry are now closed)
• Distance learning sanctuary awards – we have an existing scheme of 100+ fee waivers for a range of distance learning Master’s programmes from academic years 2023-4 to 2025-6 for students who have been forcibly displaced from their homes and/or who are at risk of political persecution, violence or conflict anywhere in the world, including Gaza. Further information and the link to the application form is available on our DL Sanctuary Awards web page.

Like the universities, Gaza’s hospitals have all been severely damaged or destroyed, and hundreds of medical staff have been targeted and killed, so there is an urgent need to support doctors (and medical students) so that they are able to return to Gaza to help rebuild the healthcare system when it is possible to do so. To this end:

• we have developed an innovative scheme - the Displaced Student Initiative - whereby displaced medical students from Gaza and other conflict areas can complete their medical degrees as visiting students at the University of Leicester. We currently have two Gazan students studying with us via this scheme. Further information can be found on this webpage and through contacting Prof. Shameq Sayeed at shameq.sayeed@leicester.ac.uk
• we are looking to offer discrete online Occupational English Test provision for Gazan medics and final year medical students to enable them to complete their training and requalify to work in the UK until such time as they are able to return to Gaza. Further details to follow, but in the meantime you can contact Aleks Palanac (ap417@le.ac.uk).

We had commenced discussions with the Council for At Risk Academics (CARA) in autumn 2023 to offer a fellowship to eminent geographer Dr Wiesam Essa from Al-Aqsa University, but he was tragically killed by an Israeli air strike in Gaza before he could be evacuated. We honour his memory through an obituary, and our students have held a powerful vigil to remember Wiesam and also other academics who have been killed in Gaza over the past few months.

We are committed to working closely with CARA to offer a fellowship to another Gazan academic in the coming months.

As part of our University of Sanctuary work, we have held the following two webinars to discuss ways in which UK HE can support HE in Gaza:

• How can UK universities support HE in Palestine? (part of our programme of events for Breaking Barriers Refugee Week 2024).
  • This session included talks and a panel discussion exploring the challenges faced by the education sector in Palestine both currently and over the past few decades, and discussed ways in which universities in the UK can provide meaningful support to Palestine’s students, educators and education system as a whole. Speakers included Dr Victoria Araj (University of Lincoln, UK), Dr Shameq Sayeed (University of Leicester, UK) and Dr Saida Affouneh (An-Najah National University, Nablus, Palestine).
• EAP collaborations with Gazan universities: Insights from the EAST project (a webinar hosted by the RefugEAP Network of English for Academic Purposes practitioners, which we convene).
  • In this webinar, Dr Bill Guariento (Northumbria University) expanded upon his blog post outlining how he and his former colleagues at the University of Glasgow worked with staff at the Islamic University of Gaza to develop the EAST Project. This was an online pre-sessional partnership, linking together Science, Engineering and Technology students from the two universities following a critical pedagogical agenda. 

• How can we provide accessible online English for Academic Purposes to students currently in Gaza? (a webinar hosted by the RefugEAP Network). 
  • In this webinar, Ibrahim Aldalis, a civil engineer who recently completed an online pre-sessional (academic English) programme via the University of Birmingham whilst experiencing conditions of extreme risk and fragility in Gaza, discusses his experience of studying on this programme, including the challenges and enablers. The perspectives of teachers, co-ordinators and researchers are also shared.

Due to the sheer extent of the devastation and the unique nature of this crisis, a good deal of information-sharing and advocacy has been required to attempt to mobilise an effective response across the UK Higher Education sector to address the huge need. To this end, we have:

• worked closely with Universities of Sanctuary to develop a guidance document on how UK universities can respond to the crisis in Palestine
• advocated for UK Universities to provide effective support to Gazan students, academics and universities via the Universities of Sanctuary network, the RefugEAP Network and the UK HE Humanitarian Group
• set up a ‘SancPal’ mailing list through which we keep members informed about the development of Sanctuary initiatives to support Gazan HE. If you would like to be added to this distribution list, please email Aleks Palanac (ap417@le.ac.uk).

We have a passionate movement of students who have been enacting our ethos as a University of Sanctuary through a range of actions:  

• organising a range of events, including talks, an information stall, cultural activities (such as Palestinian film showings, an exhibition of Gazan children's art and poetry, poetry readings and a dabke evening) and a vigil for the late Dr Wiesam Essa (incoming CARA fellow who was killed in Gaza before he could evacuate to safety)
• conducting fundraising for Gaza, such as the bake sales, charity dinner and auction run by MedRace, the Muslim Medics Forum (MMF) and the University of Leicester Palestine Society to raise over £20,000 for Medical Aid for Palestinians. Read more about these fundraising activities in this blog post.