Any advocacy to set up an initiative to support human rights defenders should start by stressing the extraordinary work they do, and the significant mutual benefit of relocation and related programmes. While defenders gain from a period of respite, training and networking opportunities, and more, university staff and students benefit from the insights defenders can bring to core activities such as research and teaching.

Aligning a programme with core university values may also help to secure support. The UNESCO Chair working paper – Universities as Sites of Activism and Protection – which provided the research foundation for these Guidelines, describes how such values, often found in strategy and policy documents, as well as vision and mission statements, are central to the purpose and self-identification of universities. The core value of universities is typically academic freedom, however, key documents may also refer to other relevant priorities such as democracy, social justice, diversity and inclusion, equality, sanctuary, decolonising educational practices, internationalisation, the Sustainable Development Goals, human rights, or community engagement. The work of defenders also champions these shared values, which often have the benefit of being long-standing and therefore more enduring than the support of particular individuals in the university.

You may also be able to secure support by highlighting how the programme could contribute to university ranking or impact, enhance the university’s global reputation, or provide the university with a point of difference.

It may be helpful to combine moral arguments (‘this is the right thing to do’) with more instrumental arguments (‘here are the benefits for the university’).