HAIT-colloquium
Under pressure. Attacks on science in democracies and dictatorships

According to the Academic Freedom Index, academic freedom has been in decline worldwide since 2013. This development is part of a global trend toward (re)autocratization. Donald Trump's unprecedented campaign against US universities, enforced through executive orders and budget cuts, has now catapulted the issue into the spotlight of Western attention. While the US once offered refuge to academics at risk, many are now leaving the country out of concern for their livelihoods. This approach is not new in democratic systems: far-right parties such as Hungary's Fidesz, Poland's PiS, and Germany's AfD have been working for years to delegitimize unpopular subjects such as Gender Studies and to question the findings of reputable climate research. Beyond repression, (semi-)autocratic systems have developed subtle methods of controlling science, for example by establishing compliant parallel structures or creating incentives for self-censorship. The HAIT colloquium in the winter semester 2025/26 will focus on such attacks in dictatorships and democracies. Researchers from various countries will take an interdisciplinary look at global trends, present findings from national case studies, examine individual refugee biographies, and develop perspectives for dealing with hostility toward science.

Lectures

16. October – The Erosion of Academic Freedom in Venezuela: A Comparative Analysis of Threats Across the Americas. David Gómez Gamboa (University of Zulia, Venezuela)

23. October – Wissenschaftsfreiheit in Zeiten von Populismus und Extremismus – Risiken erkennen, Resilienz stärken. Matthias Fejes (Scicomm, TU Dresden)

6. November – Autocratization and Academic Freedom. Angelo Panaro (Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU))

13. November – Coordinated Networked Harassment as Political Cudgel: Structural Failures of Care in an era of Institutional Acquiescence. Ashley A. Mattheis (University of Manchester) 

20. November – Between Mission and Vulnerability: The Experiences of Displaced Ukrainian Academics in the Context of the Russo-Ukrainian War. Yulia Kiselyova & Viktoriia Ivashchenko (V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University)

4. December – Democracy and Academic Freedom in India: A Contingent Relationship. Niraja Ghopal Jayal (King's College London)

11. December – Kontroversen über wissenschaftliche Expertise als Ausdruck gesellschaftlicher Konflikte: Hintergrund, Debatte und empirische Befunde. Clemens Blümel (Deutsches Zentrum für Hochschul- und Wissenschaftsforschung (DZHW)) 

22. January – Transnationale Repression in der Praxis: Die Listung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Osteuropakunde als „extremistische Organisation“. Gabriele Freitag (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Osteuropakunde e.V.)

This event is financed by the Saxon State government out of the State budget approved by the Saxon State Parliament.