Thread by @ThierryAaron

I’m thrilled to announce @CharlieJGardner @RowlandsonWill @JKSteinberger & my new paper in @FrontSustain on the role of universities in facilitating academic advocacy and activism in the climate and ecological emergency. Here's a short🧵on key points 1/n

frontiersin.org/articles/10.33…

Scientists have been increasingly trying to raise the alarm about the unfolding environmental emergency. 2/n

academic.oup.com/bioscience/art…

Responding to decades of failure & inaction from governments despite ever starker warnings, academics are increasingly joining peaceful civil disobedience movements, the necessity which is set out by @CharlieJGardner & Dr. Claire Wordley 3/n

nature.com/articles/s4155…

Over a thousand scientists have now signed a declaration organised by @ScientistsX pledging their support for non-violent direct-action movements such as @ExtinctionR and @Fridays4future to drive political action 4/n

reuters.com/article/us-cli…

However, whilst they may want to support such movements many academics can perceive barriers to joining them e.g. fear of dismissal, competing time pressures, social stigma within academia. In this paper we argue that universities should work to remove those barriers 5/n

Thousands of universities and further education colleges having issued ‘Climate Emergency’ declarations, which focus on embedding sustainability through their research, teaching and their own institutional footprints. @TheEAUC @LeadOnClimate @UNEP 6/n

unep.org/news-and-stori…

Whilst important, we argue that due to the unprecedented scale & urgency of the threat such initiatives will be insufficient to catalyse the required transformations in our societies &economies because of (i) the time lags inherent in education & research pathways to impact 7/n

And (ii) their failure to address either real-world political processes or the forces invested in maintaining the status quo. Something that we believe civil disobedience movements are best placed to do 8/n

In the paper we propose a number of actions that universities should adopt to facilitate academics move from publications to public actions 9/n

Briefly, these include explicitly recognising advocacy as part of the work mandate of academics by altering work allocation models, facilitating engaged research sabbaticals, altering hiring& promotion policies, & providing training to enhance the effectiveness of engagement 10/n

In addition, universities must defend the right of academics to engage in protest and push back against emerging threats to academic freedom. Such actions would strengthen a rich tradition of academic protest 11/n

As Prof. Amanda Power of @TORCHOxford argues universities “should now be asking whether we still believe that the best thinking for the twenty-first century is really done at a remove from profound personal investment in a liveable future” 12/n

torch.ox.ac.uk/article/the-fu…

Please check out our paper if you want to read the details of what we propose and also the other excellent papers in this special issue edited by @DrVictoriaHurth and @Profiainstewart on 'Re-Purposing Universities for Sustainable Human Progress' 13/n

frontiersin.org/research-topic…

Finally, I’d just like to thank my academic colleagues for the support & understanding they have shown me on my own journey into activism & that in its own small way my actions might inspire you to add your voice towards a just & sustainable future 14/14

https://twitter.com/McEnteeFergal/status/1394992769869955077