The Pears Institute for the Study of Antisemitism

In 2009 The Pears Foundation and Birkbeck, University of London announced the establishment of the Pears Institute for the Study of Antisemitism, funded by a £1.5m donation from the Foundation. It will be located on the Birkbeck campus in Bloomsbury and is due to open in 2010.

The Institute will work in partnership with the world-renowned Wiener Library, which will be relocating from its current home in Devonshire Street to a building adjoining the Institute for the Study of Antisemitism in Russell Square.  The Institute will become part of Birkbeck’s School of Social Sciences, History and Philosophy, and will have close links with the College’s School of Arts and its School of Law.

The new Institute will be committed to the interdisciplinary study of antisemitism, from political sciences to psychosocial studies and from history to law. It is this mix that will inform its research, teaching and contribution to public policy and debate.  The Institute is a unique academic centre which will offer interdisciplinary postgraduate degree programmes specialising in the study of antisemitism; it will work collaboratively with institutions and organisations around the world.

The Institute is founded on the principle that the study of antisemitism is vital to the understanding of all forms of racism, prejudice and xenophobia.