Keynotes
Speakers (in alphabetical order)
Prof. Vasiliki Kosta
Universiteit Leiden (NL)Vasiliki Kosta is Associate Professor of European Law at Leiden University. Her research is characterised by an interest in EU Fundamental Rights Law and more broadly in ‘horizontal’ issues, i.e. institutional and constitutional questions spanning different core policy areas of EU Law. She currenlty holds the Dutch NWO Vidi grant for, and is lead researcher of, the project: “The EU Fundamental Right to ‘Freedom of the Arts and Sciences’: Exploring the Limits on the Commercialisation of Academia”. She is member member of the standing Committee for Freedom of Scientific Practice (Commissie voor de Vrijheid van Wetenschapsbeofening) of the of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), and member of the KNAW Committee producing the advisory report on legal safeguards for academic freedom as requested by the Dutch Minister of Education, Culture and Science. She is also member of the Young Academy (De Jonge Akademie) of the KNAW, and as of April 2026 board member.
Prof. Liviu Matei
King´s College London (UK)Can universities help to address the crisis in democracy?
The keynote asks whether universities can and should actively remedy the democratic crisis. It briefly reviews major positions—from advocates who see defending democracy as a university duty to critics warning against politicisation—and supplies a critical
inventory of actions: civic education, curricular and digital initiatives, research, advocacy and public engagement models. It evaluates recent efforts to reconceptualise and codify anew academic freedom and considers how such reforms enable or constrain universities’ democratic contributions.
CV:
Liviu Matei is a higher education scholar, educator, and university leader. He is a Professor of Higher Education and Public Policy and Head of the School of Education, Communication and Society at King’s College London, where he also directs the Global Observatory on Academic Freedom.
He taught at universities in Europe, the U.S and Asia, consulted extensively in higher education and conducted applied policy research projects for international intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, national public authorities and universities from Europe and Asia. His primary areas of expertise are university governance, academic freedom and university autonomy, funding, internationalization of higher education, quality assurance, and the history and politics of higher education.
He is Vice-President of the the Governing Council of Magna Charta Universitatum Observatory, a member of the Board of Trustees of the American University of Central Asia, and the Board of Governors of CHER- the Consortium of Higher Education Researchers. He founded and directed the Yehuda Elkana Center for Higher Education and the Global Teaching Fellowships Program.
He led the project of developing a monitoring framework for the fundamental values of higher education (academic freedom, university autonomy, integrity, student and staff participation in governance, and responsibility for and of higher education), and currently leads the research team that is undertaking the first monitoring of these values in all but four European countries.