As a part of our journey to become a University of Sanctuary, we are hosting a series of events to celebrate the contributions, creativity, and resilience of refugees and people seeking sanctuary.
Upcoming Events
2025/26 Academic Year
Summer Term 2026
University of Sanctuary Symposium: Courageous Stories
(Tuesday 2nd June 2026, 10am-1pm - Shilling Lecture Theatre, Egham Campus)
This year's annual Sanctuary Symposium will focus on celebrating past and present stories from our sanctuary community at Royal Holloway. Our speakers include:
Kehinde Ojo (Sanctuary Ambassador and Former Sanctuary Scholar)
Dr Alex Sessa (Bedford Archivist) and Anne-Marie Purcell (Acting Head of Cultural Services)
Dr Neimat Zachary (Chevening Scholar, Sussex University)
To register for the event, please complete our online form or email Emily.Gee@rhul.ac.uk.
Spring Term 2026
Autumn Term 2025
STAR Conversation Series
The Conversation Series is a monthly online seminar and Q&A that brings together researchers from across Royal Holloway to discuss issues faced by refugees, people seeking asylum, and other people facing forced migration in the United Kingdom. We invite experts in our community to present on how we can make RHUL a more welcoming, empathetic, and informed place for refugees through developing vocabulary and compassion to learning key facts about asylum and human rights. Together, we will develop research links that will deepen our collective knowledge and make our community better prepared to affect positive change.
The first session will be on 'What does Sanctuary Mean to Us?' Tune in to hear Professor Anna Gupta (Law), Dr Paris Chronakis (History) and Dr Emma Cox (Drama) speak about how their research sheds light on the meaning of sanctuary on Teams.
Recent Events
2024/25 Academic Year
October 2024
30th October 2024
Royal Holloway Volunteering hosted a
'Repairing Laptops for Refugees' event on our Egham campus in collaboration with
Screen Share UK and supported by our student-led Social Actions projects. The event offered the opportunity for volunteers (both students and staff members) to refurbish electronic devices within a two-hour period which were then distributed to refugees and asylum seekers who need them. The day began with an educational element, with a talk on how digital poverty can impact marginalised communities such as refugees.
2023/24 Academic Year
Refugee Research and Collaboration Symposium (Monday 8th July)
An interdisciplinary, cross-School event which explored what Royal Holloway researchers, students, staff, and administrators can do to support refugees, people seeking asylum, and displaced people. Presentations were shared on research and practice-based projects relating to refugees and forced migration and a roundtable was chaired to discuss how we can work collaboratively to be a University of Sanctuary.
