page_title: Neda Agha-Soltan Graduate Scholarship
hierarchical_section_title: Neda Agha-Soltan Graduate Scholarship
caption_attribution_description: The Queen's College, Oxford, quad.
context_page_description: The Neda Agha-Soltan Graduate Scholarship is a scholarship for post-graduate philosophy students at The Queen's College, Oxford, with preference given to students of Iranian citizenship or heritage. It was established in 2009 following the death of Neda Agha-Soltan, an Iranian philosophy student, in the street protests that followed the disputed Iranian presidential election in 2009. The college received offers from two anonymous donors to establish a scholarship, followed by many individual donations from former students of Queen's and others to reach its £70,000 target to establish the scholarship on a permanent basis. The first recipient of the scholarship was Arianne Shahvisi, a philosophy student of Iranian descent, who described the award as "a great honour".
  The establishment of the scholarship led to criticism from the Iranian government: the Iranian embassy in London told the college that the university was involved in a "politically motivated campaign ... in sharp contrast with its academic objectives".
context_section_description: The Neda Agha-Soltan Graduate Scholarship is a scholarship for post-graduate philosophy students at The Queen's College, Oxford, with preference given to students of Iranian citizenship or heritage. It was established in 2009 following the death of Neda Agha-Soltan, an Iranian philosophy student, in the street protests that followed the disputed Iranian presidential election in 2009.  The college received offers from two anonymous donors to establish a scholarship, followed by many individual donations from former students of Queen's and others to reach its £70,000 target to establish the scholarship on a permanent basis.  The first recipient of the scholarship was Arianne Shahvisi, a philosophy student of Iranian descent, who described the award as "a great honour".
  The establishment of the scholarship led to criticism from the Iranian government: the Iranian embassy in London told the college that the university was involved in a "politically motivated campaign ... in sharp contrast with its academic objectives". In response, The Times praised the scholarship in an editorial, saying that the establishment of the scholarship was indeed politically motivated, "and admirably so", given the government's reaction to her death and continuing problems in Iran. One British–Iranian student, Leyla Ferani, has said that the scholarship could be Agha-Soltan's "most important legacy". The college has denied that it took a political decision in establishing the scholarship, stating that it aims to attract and support the best students, and arguing that refusal of the donations would itself have been a political act. Anonymous British diplomatic sources were reported as saying that the creation of the scholarship had put "another nail into the coffin" of relations between Britain and Iran.
caption: The Queen's College, Oxford, where a scholarship in the name of Neda Agha-Soltan was established in 2009
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