Institute for Social Sciences and Humanities

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One foundation. One flagship ecosystem. One endowment partner.

Three distinct legal entities, one shared public-good mission. Use the views below to see how the foundation, its flagship initiative, and its philanthropic partner relate — without conflating them.

Academic freedom, democratized education, and knowledge infrastructure for constrained contexts.

ISSH was created to respond to violations of the right to education, academic freedom, and access to uncensored knowledge. Its work connects higher education, public education, open-access publishing, civic capacity-building, and multilingual knowledge infrastructures — serving learners, scholars, and civil-society actors facing barriers imposed by censorship, exclusion, displacement, economic inequality, institutional closure, or political repression.

Iran Academia: a flagship ecosystem proving what was considered impossible.

Since 2012, Iran Academia has served as ISSH’s flagship high-impact initiative — a university-in-exile model and multilingual knowledge ecosystem for learners and communities facing restricted access to independent education. It combines graduate-level education, open online courses, public knowledge, open-access publishing, international conferences, and research innovation.

Internationally accredited. Master-level qualified. Built under constrained conditions.

The ISSH / Iran Academia Social Studies Programme is a non-formal higher-education programme operating at NLQF/EQF Level 7, corresponding to master’s level. In June 2026 it received IAC/EADI accreditation from the International Accreditation Council for Global Development Studies and Research for a five-year period.

“IAC/EADI congratulated ISSH / Iran Academia on developing a distinctive, academically solid, and socially valuable programme under highly constrained conditions — appreciating its strong normative mission, committed leadership and faculty, secure and innovative online learning environment, and the wider academic ecosystem of open-access publishing, conferences, MOOCs, and public engagement.”

A proven model of education under pressure.

Figures shown as placeholder tokens — populated from verified internal data before launch.

From a proven model to international collaboration.

ISSH is expanding its research and innovation capacity as a gateway for international collaboration, joint programmes, open science, digital humanities, multilingual education, and civic knowledge infrastructure. Building on the Iran Academia experience, it offers a tested model for designing educational systems that remain rigorous, inclusive, and secure under conditions of constraint.

Recognized for educational innovation, civic impact, and academic freedom.

Governed by scholars, educators, and public-interest leadership.

Built through international scholarly and institutional collaboration.

Grouped by relationship type — recognition and historical collaboration are not presented as current partnership.

Sustain free, uncensored, high-quality education.

ISSH is partnership-ready, grant-ready, and endowment-backed. Institutions, foundations, universities, and donors can support ISSH through programme partnerships, research collaborations, grants, sponsorships, Dutch/EU giving routes, or US-based philanthropic giving through ISSH Inc. / Trust Education.

Contact ISSH