Council for At-Risk Academics

This initial rallying call focused on the need for practical support, assistance escaping persecution and relocating in British universities, and deliberately avoided making any sort of political comment.

Albert Einstein, in his last major public address in Europe before taking up his post at Princeton University in the United States, spoke on the importance of academic freedom.

Receiving wild cheers throughout his speech, he encouraged the audience to "resist the powers which threaten to suppress intellectual and individual freedom" and spoke of our duty to "care for what is eternal and highest amongst our possessions".

Thousands of academics were helped by SPSL in the 1930s and 1940s; some, having escaped Nazi Germany and Austria, then needed further aid to be released from British internment on the Isle of Man as enemy aliens.

Sixteen academics assisted became Nobel Laureates, eighteen were knighted and over a hundred were elected as Fellows of the British Academy or the Royal Society.

Notably Ludwig Guttmann went on to found the Paralympics; Max Born was a pioneer of quantum mechanics and one of the most prominent physicists to oppose the development of nuclear weapons; and Ernst Chain would be instrumental in the discovery of penicillin.

Beveridge would later explain in his A Defence of Free Learning (1959) how "although Hitler was dead, intolerance was not" and "continued needs and the possible future crises" rendered the Society's services as necessary as ever, in Europe and across the world.

As time passed, the SPSL's focus expanded, to include, among others, those fleeing the apartheid regime in South Africa and juntas in Chile and Argentina.

Amongst the 1,500 academics assisted in the early years, sixteen went on to win Nobel Prizes, eighteen received Knighthoods, well over a hundred were elected as Fellows of the Royal Society and of the British Academy, and many more became leaders in their respective fields.

Fee waivers and financial and in-kind support are secured by Cara, whilst any additional funding needed is allocated from the organisation's own resources.

The Programme offered grants and fellowships to pay for vital equipment and supplies, and in 2012 established a ‘Virtual Lecture Hall’ at the University of Zimbabwe.

This enabled Zimbabwean academics in exile and others to connect in real time with the colleges and faculties of health and veterinary sciences, to plug knowledge gaps, to improve standards of teaching and research and to facilitate increased networking and collaboration.