1.

Recommends the following to the Council, the Commission and the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy: (a) explicitly recognise the importance of academic freedom in public statements, policies and actions relating to the EU’s external action, including recognition of the principles that ideas are not crimes and that critical discourse is not disloyalty, but rather essential parts of a democratic society and its development, that the autonomy of education institutions should be protected at all times, and that academic freedom plays an essential role in the educational advancement and the development of humankind and modern society; (b) recognise that claims to academic freedom fall under existing human rights law, derived from the right to education and the rights to freedom of expression and of opinion; recall that academic freedom extends to the freedom of academics to disseminate information and conduct research and distribute knowledge and truth without restriction, the freedom to express their views and opinions — even if controversial or unpopular — in the areas of their research and professional expertise, which may include an examination of the functioning of public institutions in a given political system and criticism thereof; (c) publicly highlight the problems of attacks on academic freedom, including their negative consequences; express concern regarding the vulnerability of the academic community to undue interference by national authorities, private actors or corporate interests; recall the responsibility of states to guarantee academic freedom, act in conformity therewith and proactively protect higher education institutions, academics and students from attacks, regardless of their origin and nature; (d) ensure that EU institutions and Member States’ representatives visiting third countries are briefed on the situation of academic freedom; (e) demonstrate support for the institutions, staff and students that are at risk or have been the victims of coercion or violent attacks and publicly condemn such attacks, by raising the issue at all levels, including through statements, visits, invitations to public appearances and trial and prison monitoring, and specific references to individual cases of members of higher education communities at risk; (f) support equal access to the academic community, regardless of ethnicity, caste, disability, nationality, religious belief, gender identity, sexual orientation or other status; pay particular attention in their dealings with third countries, to support the elimination of gender-based discrimination and all forms of violence and to help realise gender equality and the right to education for all; (g) highlight that attacks on academic freedom can also take the form of cyberattacks, as academics today increasingly make use of the internet and social media to express their ideas and opinions; (h) raise academic freedom at different levels of political dialogue, including in human rights dialogues and consultations with partner countries; step up diplomatic efforts with partner countries through bilateral and multilateral engagement in relation to incidents of concern, involving threats or attacks on academic freedom and particularly violent attacks on institutions and members of the higher education community, as well as discriminatory policies or practices, undue restrictions on research or expression, wrongful prosecution or detention and restrictions on the right to form and join trade unions; encourage partner countries to set up a framework for academic freedom and institutional autonomy and to monitor the implementation of these fundamental rights; ensure that any international cooperation agreements with partner countries respect these principles; (i) include the defence and protection of academic freedom and institutional autonomy in the Copenhagen criteria for the EU accession process with a view to preventing attacks on academic freedom in Member States, as seen in the case of the CEU in Hungary; (j) encourage all states to do as most EU Member States have already done and endorse and implement the Safe Schools Declaration and its accompanying Guidelines for Protecting Schools and Universities from Military Use during Armed Conflict, which serve as guidance on the responsibility to protect core values, especially academic freedom and institutional autonomy, in the context of violent and coercive attacks on higher education; (k) work with the UN, the Council of Europe, international agencies, civil society and higher education communities to create mechanisms for monitoring and reporting attacks, threats and undue restrictions on higher education and individual scholars and to strengthen and promote monitoring in order to raise awareness, hold perpetrators to account and improve efforts to prevent and respond to attacks on academic freedom; (l) engage and encourage regular dialogue with university communities and organisations whose mission it is to protect higher education communities and promote academic freedom, in order to develop the best policy frameworks, initiatives and advocacy strategies for academic freedom; (m) contribute to the development of capacities for prompt, thorough and transparent investigations of violations of academic freedom, particularly in situations involving violent attacks; improve efforts to prevent and respond to attacks on academic freedom and undertake all reasonable efforts to hold perpetrators to account; (n) foster work on research and advocacy aimed at reforming legislation and regulations imposing undue restrictions on academic freedom or the academic autonomy of higher education institutions, and promote institutional autonomy as a way of protecting systems of higher education from state, business or other non-state actors’ interference or attacks and preserving higher education from politicisation and ideological manipulation; (o) step up diplomatic efforts with partner countries through bilateral and multilateral engagement in relation to incidents of concern involving threats or attacks on academic freedom, in particular violent attacks on institutions and members of the higher education community, as well as discriminatory policies or practices, undue restrictions on research or expression, wrongful prosecution or detention; (p) revisit existing support and protection mechanisms for human rights defenders to develop the capacity to identify and provide assistance, including emergency protection and support, in cases involving attacks on academic freedom, including through physical protection, legal and visa support, medical support, trial and prison monitoring, advocacy and lobbying, and long-term support during exile; calls, in particular, on the European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights to include among its priorities the promotion of academic freedom and support for at-risk members of the academic community; (q) review existing programmes and resources for academic mobility and other forms of education and research cooperation, including their criteria, application procedures, requirements, timeframes and schedules, for the purpose of eliminating obstacles which might preclude otherwise qualified at-risk academics or students from being able to obtain access to programme opportunities, placements or other resources; promote the existing projects financed by the EU, such as the ‘Academic Refuge’, which strive to raise greater awareness of the importance of academic freedom in the higher education sector and the consequences for society at large when this freedom is repressed; (r) ensure that the EU’s macro-financial assistance programmes for third countries and the policies of European financial institutions do not undermine academic freedom by supporting policies that reduce the allocation of national income to the education sector; (s) create new initiatives within existing and future programmes — possibly as synergies developed and funded by the Union through its non-education and research budgets — such as the Instrument for Pre-Accession (IPA III), Horizon 2020, Erasmus+ and the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, for new EU-funded programme actions to support the placement of at-risk academics, student researchers and full degree students with international protection status in European higher education and research institutions; (t) support ongoing normative efforts at regional and international level, including through the adoption of an international declaration on academic freedom and the autonomy of higher education institutions; encourages the EU and its Member States to take initiative on academic freedom at the UN Human Rights Council; (u) ensure continued, high-level support to the European Inter-University Centre and the Global Campus on Human Rights and Democracy, as a flagship of the EU’s support to human rights education worldwide;