Join us for the opening of the Garden of Refuge Walk – a guided tour where scholars at RUB share powerful stories of refuge, resilience, and research, and reflect on what academic freedom, solidarity, and responsibility mean to them.
Where stories of refuge, resilience, and research bloom alongside nature.
Garden of Refuge Walk
The "Garden of Refuge" Walk is a temporary exhibition within the Botanical Garden of Ruhr University Bochum. It celebrates the fundamental right to academic freedom and honors the courage, resilience and contributions of scholars who are wrongfully imprisoned or who have been forced to leave their homelands due to war, persecution, or political oppression.
About the Garden of Refuge Walk
Nestled in the serenity of the RUB Botanical Garden, the Garden of Refuge Walk invites you to pause, reflect, and engage with one of the most pressing issues facing scholars, academic institutions, and societies around the world today.
It offers a space to contemplate the meaning and fragility of academic freedom – as well as the courage and shared responsibility needed to help it take root, and flourish, on campus and beyond.
As you walk the path through the Botanical Garden, you trace the journeys of scholars in exile—individuals who walk among us and have faced threats to their freedom and lives for thinking, teaching, and seeking truth.
Academic freedom is a fundamental academic value and is protected by human rights. It is a cornerstone of universities as well as open and democratic societies. Around the world, however, academic freedom is more and more constraint and scholars are increasingly silenced or persecuted for their research or public engagement.
At RUB, our dedication to academic freedom, solidarity, and social responsibility is deeply rooted in our values. This commitment is reflected in our Codex for Freedom and Diversity, the endorsement of the principles of the Magna Charta Universitatum, and our Scholars at Risk program.
As a member of the Scholars at Risk Network and the New University in Exile Consortium, and with the generous support of the Philipp Schwartz Initiative, the Fedor Stepun Fellowship Program and related programs, we promote academic freedom and support scholars, who are at risk due to persecution, conflict, or repression.
The Garden of Refuge Walk was created by students in collaboration with scholars in exile and Philipp Schwartz Fellows at Ruhr University Bochum as part of the Scholars at Risk Advocacy Seminar 2025, a key initiative of the Scholars at Risk Program of Ruhr University Bochum.
- Opening Hours: The self-guided Garden of Refuge Walk is open during the Botanical Garden’s regular opening hours.
- Admission: Free
- Accessibility: The walk is wheelchair accessible and includes resting areas.