Iran Academia

Iran Academia, subtitled the "Institute for Social Sciences and Humanities", is an online university based in The Hague, Netherlands. It was co-founded in 2011 by Raha Bahreini, "with the overall objective to create and facilitate access to social science education in Iran by enabling Iranian youth to develop and apply critical thinking skills to issues of transitional justice, rule of law, peace-building and gender equality".[1]

Its origins lie with a group of Iranian students in the Netherlands after the of the Iranian Green Movement ("Persian Spring") and 2009 Iranian presidential election protests, and the wave of repression in the country against human rights defenders. The students created an organisation called the Iranian Progressive Youth (IPY). The IPY grew into a network of students and researchers around the world, including in Europe, North America and Australia. In September 2011, Iran Academia was established as an independent entity, with the support of Iranian academics worldwide. The first goal was to establish a three-year bachelor degree curriculum in the field of social sciences and humanities.[1]

Omid Tofighian, Honorary Research Associate for the Department of Philosophy at the University of Sydney, is a faculty member.[2]

The university publishes a journal called Iran Academia Journal[3] twice a year,[4] and the Journal of Freedom of Thought (Azadie Andisheh).[5] [6]