25 March 2026 – In recent years universities all over Europe have faced criticism and protest actions in response to their ties to the fossil fuel industry and to Israel’s genocidal war machine. These protests have highlighted the extent to which universities are deeply entrenched in violent and repressive systems, providing research, data and advise to keep them running, refine and expand them. The need to secure external funding is often one of the drivers to participate in such work in the first place, especially in times where many governments impose significant cuts to higher education and research budgets.
The new report ‘Border Labs How Universities Power Europe’s Border Regime’ by the Transnational Institute (TNI) and Stop Wapenhandel shows that universities are similarly deeply involved in Europe’s repressive border and migration policies in multiple ways. They receive research and innovation funding from the EU’s Framework Programmes and a range of other EU instruments; strengthen their ties with border authorities, including Frontex, and with the military and security industry; contribute to the EU’s border externalisation efforts; and sometimes seek to commercialise academic work through the market.
Many people within universities produce fundamental and critical research that could pave the way for political change away from the EU’s untenable, violent and escalating border and migration policies. Students and faculty therefore have an important role in pushing universities to take action against their involvement in the border-industrial-academic complex that continuously expands and raises the walls of Fortress Europe.