Academic Solidarity e.V.

Access to scientific articles and books continues to be a luxury for millions of students, researchers and independent scholars around the world. The high-fee subscription systems of major publishing houses such as Elsevier, Wiley and Springer greatly limit scientific production and education, especially in developing countries. Born in this environment, “illegal open access” platforms such as Sci-Hub and Library Genesis (LibGen) have become symbols of free access to information, while at the same time sitting at the center of the copyright debate.

Sci-Hub (https://sci-hub.se or alternative mirrors): Founded in 2011 by Kazakh software developer and neuroscientist Alexandra Elbakyan. Offers free access to academic articles.

LibGen / BookSC: An open access repository offering a wide range of PDF files, from scientific books to textbooks. Users often choose these portals to access academic publications without paying a fee.

These sites have been closed down or blocked by court orders many times. But they have managed to keep coming back with new domains. Sci-Hub’s servers have moved to countries like Russia, the Netherlands, Sweden, and most recently Ecuador. LibGen’s mirrors are still accessible on the Tor network or alternative domains.

US publishers have filed multi-billion dollar lawsuits against Sci-Hub. In 2017, Elsevier won a lawsuit against Sci-Hub, receiving $15 million in damages. However, the site has continued to operate.

Piracy or Academic Solidarity?

These platforms are clearly violating copyright laws. But their supporters defend this violation as an ethical challenge. Here are some common justifications:

1. Publicly Funded Information Should Be Public: “Why should tax-funded research require payment again?”
2. A Lifeline for Developing Countries: Sci-Hub can be the only source for individuals without institutional access.
3. Publishers’ Excessive Profit Margins: It is unfair that scientists make huge profits from content that is written and reviewed for free.

On the other hand, many academics and publisher representatives argue that copyright violations harm the scientific ecosystem and undermine quality publishing.

In 2021, the journal Science reported that more than 70% of the 28 million download requests made to Sci-Hub came from countries such as China, India, Indonesia, Iran, Brazil, Egypt, and Turkey (https://datadryad.org/dataset/doi%3A10.5061/dryad.q447c).

According to Nature’s 2016 analysis, 25% of Sci-Hub users come from universities with institutional access, suggesting that speed, not access, is also a motivation (https://www.nature.com/nature-index/news/early-career-researchers-herald-change).

In many countries, open access platforms (arXiv, PubMed Central, DOAJ) are supported, but many current publications are still behind paywalls. Initiatives such as Plan S are trying to force publicly funded research into open access.

In Turkey, despite steps such as the National Thesis Center of the Council of Higher Education, access to scientific publications is still limited. This increases the need for resources such as Sci-Hub.

Sci-Hub and LibGen are symptoms of a much deeper problem beyond copyright laws: If there is no fair access to information, then science is not equal. These platforms are not legal, but their existence raises an ethical question: Whose right is information?

Scientific information, which is still accessed through high subscription fees in many parts of the world, is being democratized by some universities in Africa in line with the principles of “open access.” Pioneering institutions in countries such as South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, and Senegal are developing a new understanding of academic publishing against traditional publishing monopolies. This development concerns not only the African continent, but all countries where access to information is limited.

The system created by large publishers such as Elsevier, Springer Nature, and Wiley often makes access to research outputs difficult even for university budgets. Researchers pay a fee to publish their articles and then have to pay again to access these contents.

Some universities and research organizations in Africa that have stepped outside this structure have adopted open access policies, setting an example for both their students and the global academy.

Pioneering Institutions and Initiatives

• University of Cape Town (South Africa): In 2023, it developed a policy encouraging academic staff to publish their publications in open access journals. The university has made hundreds of master’s and doctoral theses publicly available through its open access repository called OpenUCT (https://open.uct.ac.za/).
• University of Nairobi (Kenya): It has made thousands of academic publications open access through the UoN Digital Repository (https://erepository.uonbi.ac.ke/), which has been active since 2021. The institution has also managed to reduce spending on publishers such as Elsevier and Springer by 40%.
• SPARC Africa (https://sparcopen.org/): This network, which supports open access movements in Africa, supports the development of open science policies together with SPARC Global. Many universities from countries such as Nigeria, Senegal and Uganda are part of the network.
• UNESCO Open Science Recommendation (2021): Many countries in Africa have become party to this global document and have begun to develop open science policies at the national level. In this context, it is aimed to make scientific data and publications as accessible as possible (https://www.unesco.org/en/open-science).

Many academics in developing countries cannot even access the literature that will form the basis of their research. While this situation increases scientific inequality, the experience of universities working with open access models provides an important source of inspiration.

Although some steps have been taken in Turkey in recent years through the National Thesis Center and institutional open access archives within the Council of Higher Education, there are still serious restrictions on access to international publications. Examples from Africa show that more courageous and systematic steps can be taken in this area.

One of the most striking initiatives developed against profit-oriented publishing giants is “Plan S” (https://www.coalition-s.org/). This plan, supported by funders in Europe, aims to make it mandatory for all research supported by public funds to be published open access. Some countries in Africa have declared their support for this initiative.

In addition, open access platforms such as the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ, https://doaj.org/) and AfricArXiv (https://info.africarxiv.org/) play a major role in bringing academic production from Africa to the international arena.

The idea that access to scientific knowledge should be a global right is taking shape in Africa with a rising academic movement. This movement is not only contributing to the development of the continent, but also showing that alternatives to the exploitative system in publishing are possible.

Breaking out of knowledge monopolies is not only the responsibility and interest of Africa, but of all developing countries.

Universities around the world are becoming institutions where political and social tensions are increasingly felt, beyond being centers for producing science and educating young minds. Recent developments in the context of the Palestine-Israel conflict show how fragile freedom of expression can be even at universities. Examples from the US, Germany, France and Türkiye show that the academic world is going through a great test.

While Columbia University and New York University in the US are disciplining students and graduates who have made statements in support of Palestine, the freezing of federal funds has come to the agenda under pressure from the Trump administration. While Logan Rozos, who gave a peaceful message about Palestine in his graduation speech, had his diploma revoked, the detention of Mahmoud Khalil, an immigrant academic, for weeks has caused public outrage. These incidents reveal not only the tensions on campus, but also the blurring of the boundaries between freedom of expression and state power. https://apnews.com/article/nyu-commencement-speech-israel-palestinian-b358e0bb6961b43e426c97d3c4cdd03f https://www.ft.com/content/ffbd55e4-c94e-442c-b1f1-3b53c14e3ac1

In Germany, the Free University (FU Berlin) canceled the speech of United Nations special rapporteur for Palestine Francesca Albanese due to political pressure. It was reported that the Berlin state senate and political actors outside the university were influential behind the decision. Such developments, where academic autonomy is undermined under the name of “public pressure,” indicate how politicized freedom of expression has become in Germany. https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20250213-german-university-cancels-event-featuring-un-special-rapporteur-on-palestine/

A similar picture is evident in France. Protests organized by students at the prestigious Sciences Po University were suppressed with harsh police intervention. A conference on Palestine at the University of Lille was canceled on the grounds of “public order.” France’s traditional values ​​of “secularism” and freedom can be vulnerable to political sensitivities in a university environment. https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/french-university-stirs-controversy-by-canceling-palestine-conference/3194629

The picture is much more serious in Turkey. Students and academics who speak out against the government’s domestic policies, rather than on the Palestinian issue, are facing systematic oppression. Peaceful events organized at universities are suppressed with disciplinary investigations and police interventions. While rectors often act as an extension of the political power, dissident academics are dismissed and students are intimidated. In this environment where the law does not function sufficiently, academic freedom is almost completely turning into a formal concept. https://tr.euronews.com/2025/04/07/yokten-universitelere-boykot-yazisi-idari-islem-yapin https://www.tr724.com/rejimin-yargi-silahi-gaziantep-operasyonu/

These developments clearly reveal the crisis that academia is in on a global scale. As institutions that produce not only knowledge but also value, universities should play a decisive role in protecting freedom of expression and intellectual pluralism. However, current conditions show that academic freedom requires not only legal regulations, but also courage, solidarity and a determination based on principles. These developments once again show that the phrase “Character is determined by decisions taken under pressure” is valid for both individuals and institutions. The international community must not see these examples as merely local issues, but must strengthen solidarity networks and place universities back at the centre of free thought and debate. Silence is not an option; the future of academia depends on the attitudes taken today.

Fulbright, one of the most established international academic exchange programs in the US, is facing perhaps the biggest crisis in its history. Fulbright’s 12-person independent advisory board resigned last week in response to the Trump administration’s attempts to increase its political influence over the program. This resignation is not only a protest, but also a serious alarm in terms of academic freedom and international cooperation. (https://www.derstandard.at/story/3000000273653/fulbright-vorstand-tritt-aus-protest-gegen-us-regierung-zur252ck https://www.twincities.com/2025/06/11/trump-fulbright/)

The board members announced that the Trump administration canceled the scholarship applications of around 200 American academics and put the applications of around 1,200 foreign researchers into a “preliminary review” process with uncertain legal basis. The academics in question were researching areas such as climate change, gender, immigration and race. This raised concerns that the administration was directly interfering with academic content.

The board found these interventions to be contrary to the fundamental spirit of the Fulbright program – the principles of international understanding and free inquiry. The resignation letters particularly emphasized: “Fulbright should serve academic integrity, not political propaganda.”

The Fulbright program has supported more than 400,000 researchers to date, including Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winners. However, it has recently been under pressure not only through content control but also through budget cuts. Bills aiming to reduce the program’s annual budget from $691 million to $50 million have sparked major debates in Congress.

These developments in the US are concerning not only at the national level but also in terms of global academic collaborations. The freezing of billions of dollars in funds at universities such as Harvard, Cornell and Northwestern shows that the tension between academia and politics has reached a new threshold. In a sense, this means that higher education in the US is being “forced to localize.”

In the face of all these developments, we are reminded once again of the fact that “character is revealed under pressure.” In order for academia to defend itself, it needs not only ethical principles, but also transparent and collective resistance.

The international academic community should not remain silent in the face of such crises. Otherwise, not only scholarships but also the global circulation of free thought will be under serious threat.

FutureHouse, based in San Francisco, is a non-profit research laboratory established to build “AI Scientists” to provide solutions to humanity’s biggest problems. In their 2023 published goals, they aim to accelerate next-generation discoveries by automating the “scientific method,” primarily in biology (https://www.futurehouse.org/)

Today, the volume of scientific production has far exceeded human capacity. There are over 38 million scientific articles in the PubMed database alone as of 2024. Thousands more are added every day. It is becoming increasingly difficult for human researchers to generate meaningful hypotheses, evaluate research, and achieve groundbreaking discoveries in this vast pool of information. This is where FutureHouse comes into play:

FutureHouse adopts a 4-layered approach to robotize scientific discovery:

1. AI Tools (AlphaFold-like models, laboratory experiments).
2. AI Scientific Assistants (text-based literature research, hypothesis generation).
3. AI Scientists (experiment design, hypothesis generation, data analysis, and conclusion writing).
4. Human — the stage where scientific “inquiry” processes can be carried out without the need for humans in the future.

This structure makes the scientific process both in-depth and scalable, allowing researchers to make faster discoveries.

A newly published Nature article shared that the model called ether0 developed by FutureHouse has even exceeded human levels in chemistry problems (https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-01753-1). Ether0 answers questions step by step with a logical chain by adopting an approach called “reasoning model”. This technology, unlike traditional LLMs, claims to provide scientific credibility by explaining the “decision process”.

FutureHouse is a completely non-profit “moonshot” laboratory supported by donors such as Eric Schmidt. Its aim is not to change the course of big pharmaceutical companies; It is stated as creating a transparent and disciplined scientific production process dedicated to serving humanity (https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-01753-1).

According to TechCrunch, FutureHouse’s new AI agent named Finch can “work like a grad student” and analyze biological data directly (https://techcrunch.com/2025/05/06/futurehouse-previews-an-ai-tool-for-data-driven-biology-discovery/). Such tools have the potential to expand both the speed and capacity of the laboratory infinitely.

Originally designed as “human intelligence augmentation,” these systems aim to eventually produce “AI Scientists” who can replace humans.

With this project by FutureHouse, a “scientific automation machine” that will scale discoveries from 0 to 1 in the scientific world may emerge. This approach is also inspiring for the academic solidarity platform that advocates that science should serve democracy and humanity. No matter how much technology develops, the mission of being “science for humanity” can be achieved when supported by structures that include human values, ethics and the spirit of autonomous science.

Harvard University’s 2025 commencement ceremony was not only an academic celebration, but also an opportunity to reflect on immigration, academic freedom, and political oppression. Stanford University professor and author Dr. Abraham Verghese’s speech (https://youtu.be/4mjPt7cZW1k?si=K2SCPaQf2mXy1dlQ) shed light on these issues and inspired the graduates.

Verghese, who was born in Ethiopia and studied medicine in India, shared his own immigration experiences in his speech. Verghese, who came to the US to pursue a career in medicine, emphasized the opportunities America offers to immigrants and the contribution of this diversity to the country’s strength. He also criticized the Trump administration’s policies towards international students and praised Harvard’s stance against these oppressions.

Verghese called on the graduates to appreciate the value of life and make the most of their time. Another important statement in the speech was the sentence, “Character is determined by decisions made under pressure.”

In one of the most striking moments of his speech, Dr. Abraham Verghese made reference to the slogan “Make America Great Again,” frequently used by former US President Donald Trump. However, Verghese emphasized that in order for this statement to truly come to life, the contributions of immigrants must be recognized. Drawing on his own immigration story, he reminded us that America has developed through international contributions in many areas, from science to the arts, technology to health. “What makes this country great is its values ​​that keep it open to the world,” he said.

This emphasis was both a reference to political rhetoric and a strong message against rising xenophobia.

In his speech at the commencement ceremony, Harvard President Alan Garber reiterated the university’s commitment to its global student community. He stated that international students are an integral part of Harvard, with the phrase “from all over the world – as they should be.” This statement was interpreted as a stance against the Trump administration’s restrictions on international student visas.

Harvard University has once again demonstrated its commitment to academic freedom and diversity by standing up to the pressures on international students. Verghese’s speech provided an opportunity for not only graduates but also society as a whole to reflect on unity, solidarity and human values.

The rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies deeply affects not only industrial production but also academic research and social structures. While AI’s capacity to conduct doctoral research threatens many professions, it also questions the future of academic careers.

The ability of AI systems to solve complex scientific problems and develop new hypotheses is revolutionizing the world of research. This requires academics to redefine their roles and work in collaboration with AI.

The integration of AI into production processes can reduce the need for labor, especially in factories. This brings with it the risk of widespread unemployment. It is important for societies to be prepared for this transformation and strengthen their social safety nets.

International standards are being developed to manage the risks brought by AI and ensure its ethical use:

• ISO/IEC 23894:2023: Provides guidance for identifying, analyzing and monitoring risks throughout the life cycle of AI systems.
• ISO/IEC 42001:2023: Specifies requirements for the establishment, implementation and continuous improvement of AI management systems.

These standards aim to support organizations in using AI technologies responsibly and securely.

In Germany, 92% of businesses use AI technologies directly or indirectly. This widespread use necessitates effective and ethical management of AI.

The following steps are recommended to manage the social and economic impacts of AI:

1. Education and Awareness: Raising public awareness of AI and disseminating educational programs.

2. Social Security: Strengthening social safety nets against workforce transformation and evaluating basic income practices.

3. Ethics and Legal Regulations: Establishing and implementing national and international legal frameworks for the ethical use of AI.

While evaluating the opportunities offered by AI, it is critical to consider the risks it brings and to direct this technology for the benefit of humanity.

Student movements have been the vanguard of social change throughout history, voicing demands for freedom and justice against oppressive regimes. Today, students around the world take to the streets to make their voices heard and defend their rights.

Student Movements Have Been Effective Throughout History

Student protests have played an important role in many areas, from civil rights movements to anti-war demonstrations. For example, the protests held at Columbia University against the Vietnam War in 1968 forced university administrations to change their policies and created widespread social awareness. Similarly, the Tiananmen Square protests in China in 1989 became a symbol of demands for democratic reform.

Current Student Movements and Repressions in Türkiye

Students in Türkiye are also fighting for democratic rights and freedoms. However, these movements have recently faced increasing pressure. In the most recent operations conducted in 47 provinces centered in Gaziantep, 77 people, including university students, were arrested. These operations raise serious concerns regarding freedom of expression and the right to organize.

The Rümeysa Öztürk Incident in the US

Rümeysa Öztürk, a doctoral student at Tufts University in the US, was detained on the grounds that she supported Palestine and held in an immigration center for six weeks. However, she was released by court order. This incident drew international attention to the issues of freedom of expression and academic freedom.

The Rule of Law and the Future of Student Movements

The rule of law and the protection of fundamental rights are essential for student movements to be successful. In democratic societies, students’ rights to peacefully protest must be guaranteed and their freedom of expression must be supported. Otherwise, these movements can be suppressed and social progress can be hindered.

Student movements are the engine of change and progress. However, for these movements to be effective, it is essential that democratic values ​​and the rule of law are protected.

In Turkey and many other parts of the world, the doctoral process for young academic candidates can be interrupted due to reasons such as financial difficulties, bureaucratic obstacles and loss of motivation. Some academics, especially those who migrate, are forced to leave their doctoral studies unfinished. However, a doctorate is not only the foundation of an academic career, but also of independent thinking, disciplined work and knowledge production.

Doctoral education is of great importance not only for those who want to stay at universities, but also for preparation for research and leadership positions in think tanks, NGOs, international organizations and the private sector. Doing a doctorate provides ethical responsibility, methodological competence and critical analysis skills in knowledge production.

Moreover, at a time when academic production is under such pressure, doctoral studies are becoming a tool of knowledge-based opposition, intellectual autonomy and scientific resistance.

Scholarship Opportunities for Doctoral Studies in Germany

DAAD Scholarships: The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) offers doctoral scholarships to candidates from all disciplines.

Humboldt Foundation – Feodor Lynen Research Fellowship: Ideal for those who want to do research at postdoc level but want to continue their doctorate.

Gerda Henkel Foundation: Focuses on humanities, history and cultural heritage.

Rosa Luxemburg Foundation: For those interested in issues such as social justice, equality and the environment.

Examples of University-Sponsored Scholarships

• Uni Trier – PhD Completion Scholarship

• Uni Marburg – Philosophy of Law and Criminal Law Scholarship

• HHU Düsseldorf – Scholarship List

German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF): The BMBF provides scholarships through various institutions to support doctoral research.

Those who drop out of their doctorate can take part in more flexible, part-time or modular programs. After all, a doctorate is not just an academic title, but a way of knowledge-based solidarity, intellectual freedom and shaping the future. There are always opportunities for those who embrace the principle of “from cradle to grave”.