SAR accepts EAIE’s Award for Excellence in Internationalisation Award

Scholars at Risk was honored to accept the 2026 EAIE Award for Excellence in Internationalisation on September 8, 2026, in Glasgow, Scotland, in recognition of its 25 years of protecting threatened scholars and defending academic freedom worldwide.

SAR Executive Director, Rob Quinn, accepted the award on SAR’s behalf, expressing deep gratitude for SAR’s longstanding partnership with EAIE, and in particular, for EAIE’s support in spreading the vision behind SAR: that ideas are not crimes, and that scholars and universities should be free to engage, to work together, and to serve the public. 

Quinn also introduced SAR’s 25th anniversary theme, “Truth Matters,” and invited the audience to attend the 2027 SAR Global Congress in June at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece to continue exploring this theme with the wider SAR network. 

“This theme begins by recognizing the core, truth-seeking functions of the university: research, teaching, and dissemination of ideas. These are the functions that the EAIE community has done so much to promote,” said Quinn. “But the theme goes on to recognize that truth and truth-seeking, the free exchange of ideas, the free movement of scholars and students, and most especially the role of higher education in serving the public – all of these are under attack today. If we value them, we must redouble our efforts to defend them.” 

An excerpt of Rob Quinn’s acceptance remarks: 

“I do not need to spell out the ways that scholars and universities are threatened; these are in the headlines almost every day. At SAR, we will continue to work, one by one, with universities in the network on behalf of scholars facing grave threats […]. But we are also seeing increasing pressures in democratic states, countries where until recently academic freedom was reasonably well respected. Europe is not immune to these pressures, but the United States provides the starkest warning that we can never take academic freedom and the freedom to think and ask questions for granted. 

In sum, the United States, which was once one of the leading proponents of academic freedom, is rapidly becoming one of the leading exporters of bad models: restrictions on international exchange; censorship of teaching; interference in admissions, hiring and administration; and reorienting the most fundamental mission of higher education from serving the public to serving the state or governing party. The situation in the US is a clear warning that we can no longer rely on vague declarations of values and traditional practices of restraint. Academic freedom and international higher education are too important. We need to fight for strong, lasting protections and programs.

In this space, Europe has been leading. Through EU-funded consortia such as Inspireurope, MSCA4Ukraine and the SAFE program, as well as a number of nationally focused and funded efforts, European higher education has been building connections and setting up programs to help colleagues under threat. The Council of Europe and the European Parliament have been doing their part as well, advancing efforts to measure respect for academic freedom and to document violations, and most recently, advancing an essential proposal for a permanent European Researchers at Risk Programme for researchers from any country. I applaud these efforts.

And we are seeing progress in other regions as well. Emerging regional academic freedom coalitions, already operating in Africa, the Americas, and Southeast Asia, and soon in other regions, are building bridges and doing the baseline research to support the next phase in this work: the articulation of a global academic freedom agenda. Even as we continue to do everything we can to help as many threatened scholars as we can, we also need to develop this collective voice.

This is why EAIE and its members, and why meetings like this one, are so important. Because in the panels and workshops and networking sessions you are building the community that is the backbone of the “truth matters” vision of higher education: an international professional community dedicated to quality research, teaching, and exchange of ideas, across borders, for the public good. You are on the front lines of this fight, and we stand with you. That is why this award from EAIE for our work is so meaningful. We are very grateful for this honor and for your partnership going forward. Thank you.

More resources:

See SAR recognized in the 2026 EAIE Award winners recap. Read more »

Read a reflection from EAIE President Sara Lopez Selga and Executive Director Mervin Bakker on the organizations’ shared commitment to defending academic freedom and building a global higher education community that stands with scholars under threat. Read more »

Listen to the EAIE podcast as SAR Executive Director Rob Quinn and host Laura Rumbley reflect on SAR’s 25‑year evolution, highlight meaningful achievements, and the urgent challenges reshaping higher education today.