The fourth Arqus Annual Conference was integrated into the celebrations for the fiftieth anniversary of the University of Minho. The conference aimed to intensify the exchange within the Alliance and with other European universities and higher education institutions and also to expand synergies. To this end, the conference offered a varied programme of plenary sessions, working group meetings and networking opportunities as well as an awards ceremony for outstanding initiatives within the Alliance.
On the opening day, Rector Eva Inés Obergfell led a plenary session on the role of universities as places of sanctuary in challenging times. She described how Leipzig University itself was founded in 1409 by refugee students and scholars who had fled discrimination at Charles University in Prague and that they then laid the intellectual foundations for the university in Leipzig. Over the past 600 years, this has proved to be a stroke of luck for Leipzig and the region, said Rector Obergfell: “Universities thus have a long history of integrating scholars at risk and benefitting from their intellectual input. Additionally, universities have a great societal responsibility to shed light on conflicts and to name unjust structures around the world. And they have the responsibility to encourage diversity, to encourage tolerance, by promoting freedom of expression and opinion and fostering research unfitted by political restraints.”
The session opened with a keynote speech by Gemma Irvine, co-chair of Scholars at Risk Maynooth and vice president for equality and diversity at Maynooth University. In her keynote, Irvine emphasised the key role universities play in preventing discrimination and protecting human rights, whereby each individual must take responsibility for a coexistence that is free from discrimination. She also highlighted the Excellence in Exile initiatives through which Maynooth University actively supports refugees and asylum seekers: “We all have a duty of care to our colleagues across the higher education system across the globe. When someone attacks their academic freedom, they attack our academic freedom.”
The plenary session reiterated the commitment of the academic community and its societal responsibility to protect the rights of all its members. Recordings of the plenary sessions are available on the Arqus Alliance YouTube channel.
At the end of the conference, Professor Matthias Middell, vice-rector for campus development: cooperation and internationalisation, invited the Arqus partners to the 2025 Annual Conference in Leipzig.
