"We are writing to express solidarity with all our persecuted colleagues... and calling on the Chinese government to revoke these unjustified sanctions and to accept that scholarship on China, like scholarship on any country, entails scrutiny of its policies, goals and actions.
We also pledge to continue to be inclusive in our own work and engage with all academic views, including those the Chinese government is trying to marginalise. We request our universities and research institutions to demonstrate their unconditional commitment to academic freedom,
and we signal that the intimidation strategy being pursued here is unlikely to succeed. It is only by fostering critical and differentiated academic debate that scholarship can contribute to the global common good." /ends
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1/ @UUKIntl released a report today on security guidelines for universities and featured in Times @CharlieHParker. It needs consideration and we are happy to debate it with them at their conference on 11-12 Nov. However, here are some initial thoughts.
2/ We are happy that the reports cites our work as well as that of @Sar@GPPi among others - alas not @ucu. It also adopts our definition of academic freedom and highlights the values of codes of conduct to protect academic from. However, we have a number of concerns.
3/ The report makes some positive references to "values" and academic freedom. But it fails to recognise that the values of UK universities are universal, and the institutions are inherently international not just affected by “internationalisation”.