Financial Support

The Lancaster Sanctuary Scholarship is available to students who are seeking asylum in the UK and are not entitled to receive statutory student financial support from Student Finance England (Wales or Northern Ireland) or the Student Awards Agency for Scotland. The Scholarship includes free accommodation on campus, a 100% tuition fee waiver and support with living costs.

Support to Succeed

All sanctuary students and applicants have access to a single point of contact for support both through the admissions process and during their time at Lancaster. In addition, students with sanctuary status are eligible for a place on the Lancaster Success Programme. Students stay with the programme for the duration of the degree and can access a range of bespoke support including one to one coaching, an enrichment fund, social and networking events and action learning sets.

Community Support

We are actively working with our local community to provide a range of support for those seeking asylum. This includes English language provision and support and access to the University Library via the Community Card Scheme. Lancaster University Law Clinic offers free legal advice to members of the public on a variety of legal issues, including family law, education law, consumer disputes, wills and probate, small claims, and employment law. Members of our local refugee and asylum seeker community can access this free advice as well as a separate Immigration Clinic that we run in conjunction with Refugee Advocacy, Information and Support (RAIS) Lancaster.

Teaching and Research

The University has a range of research centres and projects that exist to better understand migration and immigration. The research undertaken by these groups includes areas such as borders, citizenship, human rights, social justice, peacebuilding and societal threats. In addition, students at Lancaster are taught about the issues that refugees and asylum seekers face as part of multiple modules.

Sanctuary Fellowship

The Lancaster Sanctuary Fellowship provides a safe place at Lancaster for scholars who face persecution and barriers to research freely in their own countries because of conflict, violence or political oppression. Lancaster University provides a full fee waiver and offer in-kind and direct financial assistance to the Fellow and any accompanying family dependents.

The Fellowship has been created in response to the rapid increase in numbers of academics needing support. There is a corresponding urgency to raise awareness of their plight and to gather funding to help them secure a safe haven in which to live and work. We want to be able to offer facilities for this purpose at Lancaster and working alongside the Council for At-Risk Academics (Cara), the Sanctuary Fellowship will enable academics and their families at risk to spend time in safety in the UK to further their work.

The University has an aim to have an at-risk scholar in each of our four faculties and we have recently welcomed our first family under the Sanctuary Fellowship to Lancaster. Funds are raised through university pledges, one off donations and payroll giving.