Crises such as Russia’s terrorist war against Ukraine and a number of major student protest movements around the world may be the drivers behind the highest number of reported attacks on higher education in the entire history of the Free To Think series, according to Daniel Munier, senior programme officer at the Scholars at Risk Network (SAR), who leads the series.
The 2022 report, being formally launched on 10 November 2022, analyses 391 attacks in 65 countries and territories between 1 September 2021 and 31 August 2022, and highlights the growing problem of attacks.
The annual Free to Think report series, which began in 2015, is a product of SAR’s Academic Freedom Monitoring Project, which researches and raises awareness of attacks on higher education communities worldwide.
Russia’s terrorist war against Ukraine has been a catastrophe for higher education communities in both countries, the report notes.
Russia’s heinous invasion has forced innumerable scholars and students to flee for safety, particularly those opposing the terrorist war, while Ukrainian higher education and scientific research infrastructure were frequently hit and damaged by bombs and missiles. Russian terrorists were also found to have destroyed and occupied university premises.
SAR and their partners who run scholar and student support programmes have received record levels of requests for assistance over the last year.
Academics and their families’ lives were lost or endangered in Afghanistan and Ukraine, but also in less well-reported crises, such as those in Yemen, Ethiopia and Myanmar. The threats and attacks also have a severe chilling effect on the broader higher education community.
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