Openness challenged: the university at risk? - Institutions for Open Societies 

Openness is a necessary condition for universities to compete and collaborate internationally, to contribute to an open society, to global challenges, and the public good. However, openness cannot any longer be taken for granted in the changing global context. Rising geo-political tensions, security concerns, illiberal trends, internal tensions in the EU, jeopardize institutional autonomy, academic freedom and potentially weaken the university’s ability to play its role as a core institution of the open society.  Read more: Openness challenged the university at risk.pdf

Past events:

• Launch of Openness Challenged University at Risk 29 sept 2022.pdf by Marijk van der Wende
• Dialogue 1 The Role of Universities in Promoting Democracy.pdf  29 Sept 2022 with John Douglass (UC Berkeley) based on his recent book: Neo-Nationalism and Universities: Populists, Autocrats and the Future of Higher Education. John’s Hopkins University Press, 2021 (open access) and James Kennedy (UU) 
• Dialogue 2 Academic Freedom in the EU - a legal perspective.pdf  22 November 2022 (11.00-12.30 hrs)  With Kurt Deketelaere (KULeuven) & Sacha Garben (College d’Europe). Discussant: Lavinia Kortese (UU)
• Dialogue 3: Current threats viewed from 200 years of university history. 12 December 2022 (12.30-14.00 hrs) with William Kirby (Harvard University) launching his new book Empires of Ideas. Creating the Modern University from Germany to America to China, Harvard University Press, 2022.  Discussant: Paul Ziche (UU).  

The project aims to explore and explain the differences in the perception and implementation of internationalisation as manifest in the academic disciplines and 
professional fields, as a way to improve our understanding of internationalization and to better inform institutional policy.

To this end, a refined (new) conceptual model is being developed to be explored and tested in a range of disciplinary and professional fields

• Uliana Furiv
• dr. Renze Kolster

See project website  

Published in: China and Europe on the New Silk Road: Connecting Universities Across Eurasia. Edited by Marijk van der Wende, William C. Kirby, Nian Cai Liu, and Simon Marginson. Oxford University Press, 2020.