Ideas from the CBC: Scholars At Risk: A New Role For Canadian Universities

More than half of the world's population lives in areas where academic freedom is either "completely restricted" or "severely restricted," according to European research published in 2025. For individual scholars and students, this can mean direct threats to their lives or those of their families and the impossibility of continuing their work, especially on topics that displease local authorities. Some of these scholars escape to Canada, where universities host them temporarily, or permanently. Canadian universities can take a role in helping them continue their work. Scholars-in-exile from dozens of countries gather at Carleton University in Ottawa to debate ways to support free thinking and research whenever and wherever it is threatened.