Istanbul University as one of the oldest Higher Education Institution of Turkey, is alone hosting 1.221 of the registered 27.600 Syrian university students in Turkish higher education system . It has significant duties and responsibilities towards the refugee youth in building their future whether in asylum countries or in the process of rebuilding their home country. In that regard Istanbul University is aware of the need to facilitate refugee students access and participation to higher education and support their further engagement with their studies, campus and city. Within this responsibility, WESREF-IU Project supported under Horizon 2020 Framework Programme SawfS-2017-1 aims to increase the Syrian youth’s access and participation to higher education through increasing awareness among administrative and academic staff and providing information, guidance and specifically tailored support mechanisms to prospective and current students amid good practice and knowledge sharing with enhanced communication and cooperation. With the aim of increasing effective cooperation with science and society and pairing science with social awareness and responsibility the project further aims to contribute to empowerment of refugee youth, improvement of institutional capacity through addressing the diverse needs of refuges and new policy and procedure development.

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 78724