The fourth Arqus Annual Conference was integrated into the celebrations for the fiftieth anniversary of the University of Minho. The conference aimed to intensify the exchange within the Alliance and with other European universities and higher education institutions and also to expand synergies. To this end, the conference offered a varied programme of plenary sessions, working group meetings and networking opportunities as well as an awards ceremony for outstanding initiatives within the Alliance.
On the opening day, Rector Eva Inés Obergfell led a plenary session on the role of universities as places of sanctuary in challenging times. She described how Leipzig University itself was founded in 1409 by refugee students and scholars who had fled discrimination at Charles University in Prague and that they then laid the intellectual foundations for the university in Leipzig. Over the past 600 years, this has proved to be a stroke of luck for Leipzig and the region, said Rector Obergfell.
“Universities thus have a long history of integrating scholars at risk and benefitting from their intellectual input. Additionally, universities have a great societal responsibility to shed light on conflicts and to name unjust structures around the world. And they have the responsibility to encourage diversity, to encourage tolerance, by promoting freedom of expression and opinion and fostering research unfitted by political restraints.”
