Dear colleagues,

The invasion of Ukraine has ignited the largest refugee crisis in Europe since the Second World War. As physicists we have a unique opportunity to help by opening our doors to colleagues impacted by the war and the associated humanitarian crisis.

We are writing to request your help in organizing US physics departments and institutes to materially support physicists of all nationalities impacted by the war. Our efforts are aimed at both temporarily assisting those who have fled the region and building a foundation for longer-term efforts to sustain, strengthen, and restore the physics community in Ukraine. We are mindful of the considerations articulated in recent guidance from the APS, and are proceeding in the belief that there are abundant opportunities to offer direct help consistent with this guidance. It is never too early for US physics institutions to assist the global physics community. We are encouraged by the strong support from our professional community and society.

We are beginning by soliciting commitments from US physics departments and institutes to host long-term visitors impacted by the war. By participating, institutions indicate their availability to host visitors (as well as the local resources that may be available to support these visitors), should suitable candidates be identified. All levels of institutional support are welcome, although greater levels of support will be most immediately useful.

We hope that your institution will be willing to join the departments and institutes that have already made commitments. You may do so at this secure form.

Initially we will share this information with the Institute of International Education’s Scholar Rescue Fund (IIE-SRF), which arranges, co-funds, and supports fellowships for threatened and displaced scholars at partnering higher education institutions worldwide. Please bear in mind that the SRF program is currently responding to multiple higher education crises and supporting scholars from a wide range of fields, so it may be some time before a physicist is identified for your institution, if a match is ultimately possible. Additional details on SRF’s eligibility criteria are available; due to high demand for IIE-SRF assistance, the program unfortunately cannot support all scholars who meet their minimum requirements.

We are in the process of making arrangements with additional organizations that can assist in connecting candidates to host institutions, and may directly connect candidates to host institutions should the opportunity arise. We will ask your permission before sharing your institutional commitment with other organizations. If your institution is already a member of Scholars at Risk (SAR), we also encourage you to make your commitment via their separate intake form. We are directing candidates for support to SRF and SAR as we become aware of them, and encourage you to do the same. 

We hope that the current initiative will be a first step in bringing together US physics institutions in support of those impacted by the war. We are in the process of developing additional efforts to help physicists of all career stages, particularly graduate students who are not currently candidates for assistance from SRF. As the graduate admissions process remains open, we encourage you to communicate with your graduate admissions committee about the status of applicants from Ukraine. In addition to considering these applicants, your institution may be in a position to reopen admissions to receive additional applications.

Thank you for your time and consideration. We encourage you to share this message with your colleagues. Please feel free to contact us with any questions you may have, and to let us know if you would be interested in lending a hand with future efforts.

Best regards,
Nathaniel Craig (UC Santa Barbara)
Michael Dine (UC Santa Cruz)
Tao Han (University of Pittsburgh)
Igor Klebanov (Princeton University and Institute for Advanced Study)
Andriy Nevidomskyy (Rice University)
Oleg Tchernyshyov (Johns Hopkins University)
Yaroslav Tserkovnyak (UC Los Angeles)