Month: May 2026

Lee Ann Banaszak and Ilonka Oszvald

It is easy to feel disheartened in the current environment of funding cuts to research and higher education and for those of us based in the United States, it’s hard to avoid the daily onslaught of bad news from the media, colleagues, and friends. Many of us know someone whose position was “DOGEd” out of existence, who lost funding for their lab or department, or whose field was “cancelled” by the current administration. There are, however, bright spots and we had a chance to experience these personally on a recent trip to Berlin.

We took part in a workshop on “Building Resilient Higher Education Systems: A Transatlantic Perspective” hosted by the Mellon Foundation and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. The event brought together representatives from US and European funding organizations, nonprofits, and universities to examine examples of resilience, and consider the current and potential threats to academic freedom in the United States and Europe. The discussion was held under the Chatham House Rule.

Participants in the meeting included experts studying and providing benchmarks on academic freedom across the Atlantic and around the world, such as the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, which, in collaboration with the V-Dem Institute at the University of Gothenburg, produces the annual Academic Freedom Index; the Public Religion Research Institute; and the University College London. Representatives of organizations that provide support and advocacy for research and higher education such as the Alliance for Higher Education, Democracy Forward, the Lumina Foundation, and the New America Foundation also shared their perspectives on approaches toward safeguarding academic freedom and building resilience within higher educational institutions. We learned that simply reacting to events is not sufficient; we must consider the legislative, funding, and governance structures of different countries to chart a way forward.    

We were also honored to attend the 2026 Philipp Schwartz Forum, which coincided with the tenth anniversary of the Philipp Schwartz Initiative—a program that allows researchers subject to threat in their countries of origin to continue their work at German universities and research institutions. It was inspiring to meet researchers from countries like Syria, Ukraine, Turkey, and Venezuela and hear about their projects. We met incredible researchers—from a scholar working on the symbolism of fashion and clothing manufacturing in the Soviet Union to a scholar working on large language models in Pashto. We also met a physician studying the effects of war on the cardiovascular systems of women. During the second day of the forum, we saw some incredible advocacy occurring among Philipp Schwartz alumni—from one who had developed training to support the mental health of at-risk and exiled scholars to a group of scholars from Afghanistan creating on-line training modules for women in their homeland interested in careers in technology.

This inspiring week in Berlin underscored the importance of keeping transatlantic dialogue alive during politically challenging times. While the challenges faced by researchers and higher educational institutions in the United States are often in the spotlight, Germany has important state elections this fall and many of the questions we have been grappling with stateside are likely to become very real, very fast for Germans. People-to-people connections through exchange programs, research collaborations, and institutional partnerships are more important than ever; they allow us to learn from each other and find solutions to the many problems facing our world today.

The examples of resilience we encountered in Berlin were possible only through creativity, proactive approaches, a collaborative spirit, and sustained moral and financial support. There is much that those of us in US higher education can learn from understanding the systems across the Atlantic—their strengths, their pressures, and the national contexts that shape them. Continued dialogue and collaboration may not yield immediate or permanent solutions, but they ensure that none of us are navigating these challenges alone. By listening to one another, sharing what works, and remaining open to new perspectives, we make the path forward not only more informed, but more hopeful.