Tag Archive for: Academic Freedom

ALLEA has endorsed a statement by Scholars at Risk Europe calling on European Governments and EU Institutions to help scholars, researchers, and civil society organisations in Afghanistan. The joint call urges to secure their lives and careers and proposes some concrete recommendations to take action.

The appeal has been supported by 50 higher education organisations across Europe. Specifically, the signatories seek immediate action from European Governments and EU institutions to:

• Continue evacuation flights for as long as possible so as to include scholars, students, and civil society actors who have supported the forward-looking, pluralist vision of Afghanistan that the EU, European governments, NATO partners and other international and civil society organisations embraced. Do not end flights until all are safely outwho wish to leave the country.
• Increase resettlement quotas to help those in need of international protection, including researchers, scholars, and civil society actors. Ensure international protection is provided to current Afghan protection applicants through an expedited process, and prioritise and expedite family reunification applications.
• Create expedited complementary legal pathways for candidates who demonstrate an existing host institution, job, or sponsor, including for families, that would facilitate their arrival and earliest adjustment. Many European higher education institutions are ready to host scholars in temporary positions; capture that opportunity by expediting the processing of individuals for whom they are ready to step forward, and providing logistical support.
• Waive any intent-to-return and home residency requirements that may apply to visa applications for Afghan scholars and researchers for the foreseeable future. Barring full waiver, issue authoritative guidance to consular and border officials supporting a determination of satisfaction of the intent to return by showing a willingness to return in the absence of the Taliban, or a credible, durable and rebuttable demonstration that the individual would be able to return and live safely under the Taliban.
• Establish a dedicated EU fellowship scheme for researchers and scholars at risk, including scholars, students, and civil society actors from Afghanistan, especially women and ethnic and religious minorities, to undertake fellowships, lectureships, researcher positions, or temporary academic positions at European higher education institutions. See the EU-funded Inspireurope project recommendation for a dedicated scheme here. Some funds for such streams might be redirected from existing funds budgeted for Afghanistan programming, but which may not be possible to expend under the current conditions. Nevertheless, new funds will be required to meet the most urgent needs.
• Establish dedicated national fellowships for researchers and scholars at risk, including scholars, students, and civil society actors from Afghanistan, similar to existing national fellowship programmes run by the PAUSE programme in France and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation’s Philipp Schwartz Initiative in Germany.

You can read the full statement here. Scholars at Risk (SAR) is an international network of over 500 higher education institutions in 40 countries, including over 350 in Europe, whose core mission is to protect threatened scholars and intellectuals. The organisation is inviting higher education institutions willing to host at-risk individuals from Afghanistan to complete a survey here.

For further information on ALLEA’s activities on academic freedom, you can read our dedicated website page.

On 8 June, ALLEA and Scholars at Risk organised the international virtual conference ‘Academic Freedom and Intellectual Dissent’ with the President of Ireland Michael D. Higgins and US linguist and political activist Noam Chomsky as star speakers. The event focussed on the role of intellectual dissent and academic freedom in democratic societies in a Western, particularly European, context.

Academics and politicians came together to discuss the scope and the limits of academic freedom in the context of political populism, privatisation and the exigencies of the post-Covid social and educational landscape.

“When academic freedom is seriously undermined, in extremis, scholars may find themselves targeted for public vilification, job loss, imprisonment, or even death in parts of the world”, said the President of Ireland in his address.

President Higgins advocated for “the recovery of the right to pose the important questions, such as Immanuel Kant did (…): What might we know? What should we do? What may we hope?”.

In his keynote, Noam Chomsky reflected on the crisis and privatisation of universities and academic institutions. He advocated for enabling  the scientific community to make use of research funds without the intervention of politicians or donors.

He pointed out to this underlying tension within academic institutions as one of key aspects impeding the scientific community to reach an ideal of academic freedom. “Looking over the centuries, the ideal has often been uphill, but it has been a constant battle to try to sustain it in the face of external, social, economic and ideological pressures”, he argued.

Chomsky also challenged the idea of attributing the drivers of innovation and discovery in today’s societies to private businesses’ risk-taking. “This doctrine is mostly myth. Most of this work takes place in the public sector with public funding”, he stated.

Academic Freedom: Positive vs Negative

ALLEA President Antonio Loprieno opened the event with a call for action to the academic community: “There needs to be a little bit of more courage on the side of academic leaders, to be proactive in defending these values”.

In his keynote, he outlined the semantic trajectory of the concept “academic freedom”, from the “scholarly freedom” of medieval times to the “quest for truth” that catapulted the Enlightenment.

He also underlined the fundamental distinction between positive and negative academic freedom. Negative liberty refers to “removing the barriers to fulfil one’s academic mission” whereas “positive” implies advocating for a certain number of rights by the academic community.

“Do we want to protect individual rights, or do we want to enforce a certain number of values that we shared as an intellectual community?”, he asked.

“One pillar of democracy”

The panel discussion, chaired by scientist Jim Al-Khalili (Royal Society), delved into various aspects of academic freedom, from its inclusion in higher education and research policy to the role of scientists as activists and intellectual dissidents.

The speakers included Maeve Cooke (University College Dublin), Christian Ehler (Member of the European Parliament), Roja Fazaeli (Trinity College Dublin, Scholars at Risk), Andrea Peto (Central European University) and Peter-Paul Verbeek (Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, KNAW).

MEP Ehler related the current threats to academic freedom in Europe to two trends: the extreme democratic tensions, particularly in democratic discourse, and the democratic decline in EU Member States.

“If academic freedom falls, one pillar of democracy falls with it”, he concluded.

Watch the recordings on ALLEA’s YouTube channel.