Petition to End All Institutional Research Collaboration With Israeli Universities

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University of Helsinki must end all institutional collaboration with Israeli Universities

We, the students, researchers and staff of University of Helsinki, call our university to take immediate and concrete action towards Academic Boycott of Israel by ending all  current and future institutional collaboration with Israeli universities. This demand has been part of Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) for over 20 years.

Israeli universities are deeply embedded in Israel’s settler colonial project, illegal occupation and apartheid in Palestine, and inseparably entangled with Israel’s military industrial complex now guilty of Genocide. Ties to these institutions amounts to complicity in these crimes, thus the institutional partnerships must be terminated immediately.

University has joined an appeal demanding Israel’s exclusion from Horizon Europe. In order to advance this goal it must begin the process of terminating 15 ongoing Horizon research projects, in which the University of Helsinki is collaborating with Israeli universities. We must build pressure within this university to ensure that it does everything in its power to cut ties to settler colonial domination, illegal occupation and apartheid, even after a ceasefire has paused the Genocide in Gaza.

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Pressure, support and encourage the University of Helsinki to take the next step towards Academic Boycott of Israel!

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Further information on the University of Helsinki’s complicity in the oppression of the Palestinian people

The University of Helsinki has avoided its responsibility by invoking the value of academic freedom. However, we understand that academic freedom is precisely the foundation on which the university’s autonomy is based to act in favor of human rights, justice, and higher education free from genocide.*

The University of Helsinki coordinates or participates in 15 Horizon Europe research projects that have Israeli universities or research institutions as partners. The projects and Israeli partners are: 

  • Hebrew University of Jerusalem on MECANO and AgroServ
  • Tel Aviv University on PSY-PGx, FOCI, Micro4Nano and ACTNOW
  • The Israeli Institute of Technology (Technion) on eLTER PPP, eLTER PLUS, and INTRABRAIN
  • Weizmann Institute of Science on AgroServ and BETTER4U
  • Ben-Gurion University on NEUROCOV, eLTER PPP, eLTER PLUS and IRISCC, 
  • University of Haifa on HRJust
  • Reichman University on RESCUER
  • Hadassah Medical Organization on AHEAD.

These organizations have unreservedly supported the Israeli Occupation Forces invasion and violence in Gaza, given extra scholarships to students participating in the genocide, have direct ties to the Israeli army and arms companies and have expelled, intimidated and harassed Palestinian students and academics and failed to safeguard academic freedom on campuses.

*European University Association – Academic Freedom Principles
PRINCIPLE 5
Academic freedom is both a right and a responsibility held by individual academics and academic communities. One of its central roles is to empower higher education and research communities to further knowledge and education and to enable societal advancement and responsible civic engagement.
PRINCIPLE 6
Academic freedom must be framed by rigorous scientific, professional, ethical and quality standards. This includes ethical conduct, respect for the rights of others and awareness of the impact of research on humans and their environment, as well as employment obligations.

Furter information on how cooperation with Israeli academic institutions contributes to the oppression and genocide of the Palestinian people