Academic freedom and the shifting geopolitics of HE and research
January 29, 2025 @ 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm
Free
Presenter
Katja Brøgger, Associate Professor at Aarhus University, Denmark, and Associate of the Centre for Higher Education Transformations at the School of Education, University of Bristol.
Registration
Location
This is an online event.
Introduction
The post-Cold War era spurred an extensive internationalization and cross-border cooperation in higher education and research in Europe and beyond. In Europe, the launch of the European Higher Education Area in 1999 and the European Research Area in 2000, enabled knowledge (and workforce) to move freely across borders.
Meanwhile, the 2016 U.S. elections, the Brexit referendum, and various crises in the EU have since fueled growing backlashes against globalization, leading to a shift in the geopolitics of higher education and research. This changing landscape has been marked by the rise of illiberal ideologies, nationalism, populism, territorial conflicts, and an increased focus on security politics. This destabilization has led to a growing willingness among politicians and governments to intervene in the autonomy of universities and researchers. As a result, the past decade has seen a decline in academic freedom across countries with diverse political and democratic systems.
This presentation examines this new era marked by a re-politicization of higher education and research. It provides a conceptualization and diagnosis of current conditions and pressures on academic freedom in Europe, building on the notion of academic freedom as a professional freedom. The presentation includes EU and national policies and interventions and examines how pressures on academic freedom currently manifest within two different domains. One domain characterized by political controversies around free speech and anti-woke agendas, a second domain characterized by security politics.
About the presenter
Katja Brøgger, PhD, is Associate Professor (tenure track) at Aarhus University, Denmark. She is a founding research program director of Policy Futures and is heading the Policy Futures International Webinar Series. Brøgger is the Principal Investigator of two comparative projects and an EU COST Action on how new nationalisms and geo-political shifts affect European higher education and research openness, funded by the Independent Research Fund Denmark and Horizon Europe.
Katja’s research on higher education policy and governance spans the relationship between universities, nation-states, and international polities such as the EU, the European Higher Education and Research Area, as well as privatisation and accountability policies. She is a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Education Policy and Globalisation, Societies and Education, a remote evaluator for the European Research Council and a member of the Advisory Board for the Universities and the Future of Europe project under The European University Association (EUA).