In an age of a changing information space and growing distrust, universities themselves have become subjects of questioning. How can we produce knowledge in this age, and how should academia respond when faced with political hostility and public scepticism?
In this #EUIUpFront conversation, Kalypso Nicolaïdis, Professor at the Florence School of Transnational Governance and Elias Dinas, Professor at the EUI Department of Political and Social Sciences, reflect on these questions and what it means to be a scholar in times of political pressure. They speak of universities as both vulnerable and resilient spaces and agree that academia must resist outside interference, but also stay open to the world. For both, resilience does not lie in retreat but in preserving universities as pluralistic spaces where different voices and ways of producing knowledge can coexist.
This conversation links to the EUI’s workshops on ‘Universities and change - Reclaiming the space for imagination’, organised between the end of November and the beginning of December 2025, aiming to strengthen universities’ social engagement and capacity for collaboration.
Watch the full video on the EUI YouTube channel.
The #EUIUpFront conversation series brings together EUI scholars to discuss the most pressing topics of our time from diverse perspectives. Watch all #EUIUpFront videos on the EUI YouTube channel.
Kalypso Nicolaidis is a Full-time Professor at the EUI Florence School of Transnational Governance. Her research revolves around internal and external aspects of European integration as well as global affairs, transnational participatory democracy and democratic innovations, theatres of recognition, transnational legal empathy and social solidarity, global governance and international trade, sustainable integration, post-colonialism, myth and politics and the import of new technologies on international relations.
Elias Dinas is a Full-time Professor at the EUI Department of Political and Social Sciences. His research interests include the dynamics of political socialization, the downstream effects of institutional interventions and the legacy of authoritarian rule on the ideological predispositions of citizens in new democracies.