Last September, we celebrated Graduation Week for the Class of 2025 with eight fantastic ceremonies and receptions. Students crossed the stage at Friends House to collect their well-deserved degrees. Our Alumni team treated them with special gifts such as cupcakes, mugs, tote bags, a 360-degree photobooth, a global map highlighting the reach of our global community, and the opportunity to write a letter to their future selves.

When asked about what they would never forget about their time at SOAS, students mentioned the diverse and inclusive nature of our community, as well as the opportunities to develop new perspectives on the world’s biggest challenges.

Amongst this year’s honorary graduates was economist Gary Stevenson, who sent an inspiring message to our graduands.

New graduates have now joined a community of over 95,000 alumni around the world. If you are one of them, congratulations and welcome! Don’t forget to check out your exclusive alumni benefits and update your details so we can contact you about our upcoming events and opportunities in your city.

As a member of the SOAS alumni community, you have experienced first-hand the transformative impact of a SOAS education.

However, the rising costs of attending university are a barrier to many.

This Giving November (link to webpage), we are reaching out to you, our alumni community, to help open doors for the next generation of SOAS students through our scholarships programme.

Scholarships provide an essential relief to students in need. With the high living costs, especially in London, many students report working more part-time hours, negatively impacting their studies. Without financial pressures, students can fully focus on their studies and take advantage of all SOAS has to offer by participating in clubs and societies. Students should not have to choose between bills and furthering their education.

Last year, we launched our scholarships appeal, Giving November. Thanks to the generosity of over 100 alumni worldwide, a total of £36,000 was raised for scholarships. This was an incredible feat, and we hope to raise even more this year to bring talented students to SOAS.

We are delighted to announce two new partnerships with leading universities in Beijing and Astana.

Beijing Foreign Studies University (BFSU) and SOAS College of Humanities, have established the first joint institute between a British and Chinese university dedicated to Asia and Africa studies. Located on BFSU’s campus in Beijing, the Institute will offer three co-designed, co-taught, and co-accredited bilingual degree programmes: a BA in Country and Region Studies, an MA in Asia and Africa Studies and an MA in Country and Region Studies.

In addition, SOAS and Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to launch a new joint one-year Master’s in Global Affairs and Eurasian Studies. The programme, opening for applications this October and commencing in 2026, is the first joint venture between the two universities, with plans for further collaboration in teaching and research.

“Our international partnerships are at the very heart of what we stand for as a university”, said SOAS Vice-Chancellor Adam Habib., “They sit as one of the pillars of our new five-year strategy.”

As a member of the SOAS Alumni community, you can now apply for the Study UK Alumni Awards.

Celebrating the achievements of international UK alumni worldwide, the Awards recognise leaders who have used their UK education to make a meaningful impact in their communities, industries, and countries. Award categories include business and innovation, culture, creativity and sport, science and sustainability, and social action.

In 2025, SOAS alumnus and Chevening Scholar Raju Kendre was named Global Winner in the Social Action category.

He graduated from SOAS with an MSc in Development Studies in 2022, and he is the founder and CEO of the Eklavya India Foundation, which supports students from historically marginalised communities in India to access higher education.

Raise your international profile, build your professional networks and business connections, and win a trip to the UK: these are just some of the benefits of winning a prestigious Alumni Award.

Physical award ceremonies will be held in 18 countries between December 2025 - May 2026. Applications close on 16 October.

We are excited to spotlight two recent initiatives using creativity to highlight realities of conflict, change and peacebuilding.

Last summer, SOAS-based non-profit PositiveNegatives launched I Couldn’t Stand By, a new comics series created in partnership with Coventry University.

I Couldn’t Stand By draws out narratives from a 6-year research project with young people in Algeria, Colombia, Kurdistan Region of Iraq, Iraq and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Their testimonies were transformed into five comics by illustrator Daniel Locke, offering an intimate insight into the emotional and political lives of youth in post-conflict societies.

You can read our interview with Positives-Negatives funder and SOAS alumnus Dr Ben Worku-Dix here.

The second initiative is a video game called Umoja, a collaboration between SOAS, Pwani University, the UNESCO Regional Office for Eastern Africa and Jiwe Studio.

Meaning “unity” in Swahili, Umoja combines ethnographic research by SOAS’s Dr Marie Rodet and partners with striking game design.

This groundbreaking educational game explores the histories of resistance to slavery along the Swahili Coast through interactive storytelling, mini-games, and historically grounded quests.

Since its inception in 2005, the SOAS Centre for Gender Studies has become a hub of research and training, working to support anti-racist feminisms and social movements challenging normative constructions of gender and sexuality. This year, we are celebrating its 20th anniversary by reflecting on its legacy, current research, and impact. 

The Centre’s focus on Asia, Africa and the Middle East productively disrupts the narratives of 'Western' feminism. Critical studies of Europe and its 'others' have earned CGS a reputation as a vivid centre for queer and trans thought, transnational feminisms, critical legal theory and anti-racist knowledge production.

Grappling with the legacy of SOAS as a training ground for the administrators of Anglophone empires, CGS tackles the complex entanglements of modern feminisms with white imperialism and postcolonial nationalisms, while fostering new strategies to decolonise feminist scholarship and practice.