The next ACA seminar will take place in Athens on 27 April and will be a co-production of ACA and its Greek member - the Greek State Scholarships Foundation IKY. There is no better location than Athens for this event, considering the theme it will revolve around.
The event will address the topic Internationalisation and Academic Freedom: it will explore the relationship between populism, anti-intellectualism, ultra-conservative government and anti-elitist tendencies on the one hand and, on the other, higher education in general, and academic freedom and internationalisation in particular. The aim is to answer key questions such as: do populist governments (always) pursue anti-international policies, reduce funding for international mobility, and discourage universities and colleges to engage in internationalisation? How should internationalisation agencies and higher education institutions in functioning democracies respond to countries and universities which restrict academic freedom? Should they suspend cooperation with these countries and their higher education sector or should they reinforce it, as a sign of solidarity with the threatened academics and in the hope that continued cooperation will 'infect' the problematic countries with a 'democracy virus'? 

ACA and IKY bring together top-notch speakers, moderators and panellists to debate on this crucial topic at the seminar. As a way of example, among the high-quality speakers are Kostas Gavroglou, the Greek Education Minister, Sijbolt Noorda, the President of the Magna Charta Observatory and former ACA President, Ulrich Grothus, the ACA President and Deputy Secretary General of DAAD, Allan Goodman, the CEO of the Institute for International Education in NYC and Marijk van der Wende, Distinguished Professor for Higher Education at Utrecht University.