In this episode, we have a special guest Professor Achim Kemmerling and we talk about what it means to protect knowledge when mobility is not an option.
Professor Achim Kemmerling leads Research-at-Risk, an initiative at the Brandt School that reimagines how universities in safer contexts can support scholars working under authoritarian regimes or in resource-poor environments. From Myanmar to Afghanistan, his work traces the fragile infrastructures that sustain teaching and research under threat and often outside official recognition or accreditation.
We discuss why most existing programs remain trapped in the language of excellence, why mobility has become a default but insufficient response, and what solidarity looks like when it is built from below. You can find more about this iniative on this link: Scholars at risk
It’s a conversation about bureaucracy and hope, about academic freedom that survives not through exile alone but through connection, care, and persistence.
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