International Scholars Warn: Georgia’s Higher Education Reform Threatens Academic Freedom

More than sixty internationally respected scholars from leading universities in Europe and North America have issued an unusually direct warning to the Georgian government. In an open letter addressed to Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze, they sharply criticize the “National Reform Concept for Higher Education” announced on 16 October. What the government presents as a long-overdue modernization aimed at efficiency, quality, and equal access is described by the signatories as a fundamentally misguided reform that deepens, rather than resolves, the structural crisis of Georgian higher education.

 December 15, 2025 

Urging a Rethink of the National Reform Concept for Higher Education in Georgia 

To Irakli Kobakhidze, Prime Minister of Georgia 

On October 16, you announced a National Reform Concept for Higher Education, consisting of seven major components. In this document and in your speech, you and your government assure Georgian citizens that the National Reform Concept will improve efficiency and quality in Georgian higher education and promote equal access for students. We agree there are longstanding problems in the Georgian higher educational system: universities and institutes are under-resourced (in 2025, Georgian government spending on higher education was 0.3% of GDP); faculty are underpaid, working two to three jobs to feed their families; government supported research and scientific laboratories have become practically non-existent; and unemployment among university graduates stimulates a massive out-migration abroad every year. 

The measures you propose in the National Reform Concept for Higher Education will not solve any of these problems. Rather, they will increase government control over the higher educational sector. Management will be placed in the hands of rectors and administrators beholden to the government. University autonomy, and with it, faculty control over academic programs and curricula will be severely weakened. University budgets will be reduced even further, and the removal of dissenting faculty will become easier as part of the reorganization. The “reform” will close the last sphere in Georgia which is open to healthy dissent. A well-functioning university system which incorporates critical thinking, self-government, academic freedom, well-funded research opportunities, and international exchange is vital to growing the Georgian national economy. Without universities where information is freely shared and research freely pursued, the Georgian economy will not thrive. 

We are international scholars from universities around the world. We are concerned about other measures undertaken by your government which have led to the imprisonment of faculty and students for peacefully defending their rights. Your proposed National Reform Concept for Higher Education will not only nullify Georgia’s democratic progress but will limit the prospects of your citizens, who you were elected to represent. Higher education provides the state with 

engaged citizens and professionals, who along with working people, will ensure the country’s survival and prosperity in an increasingly competitive global order. 

We urge the government to rethink this educationally harmful proposal and to engage with all stakeholders in Georgia’s higher educational system to create a genuine reform that will improve the lives of Georgian citizens and those of their children. 

Signed: 

1. Professor Stephen Jones, Davis Center, Harvard University 

2. Professor Ronald Suny (Emeritus), University of Michigan, University of Chicago 

3. Professor Erik R. Scott, University of Kansas 

4. Prof. Dr. Hubertus Jahn (Emeritus), University of Cambridge 

5. Professor Catriona Kelly FBA, Senior Research Fellow, Trinity College, University of Cambridge 

6. Prof. Dr. Ulf Brunnbauer, Leibniz Institute for East and Southeast European Studies, Regensburg (Germany) 

7. Professor Kelly O'Neill, Harvard University 

8. Professor Roy Allison, St. Antony's College, University of Oxford 

9. Professor Donald Rayfield (Emeritus), Queen Mary College, University of London 

10. Professor Stephen Neil MacFarlane (Emeritus), University of Oxford 

11. Lincoln Mitchell, Columbia University 

12. Professor Florian Mühlfried, Ilia State University 

13. Professor Paul Manning, Trent University, Canada 

14. Professor Maia Chankseliani, University of Oxford 

15. Professor Charles Urjewicz (Emeritus) (INALCO, Paris, France) 

16. Professor Oliver Reisner, Ilia State University Tbilisi 

17. Professor Michael Rochlitz, University of Oxford /Director of the Oxford Georgia Programme 

18. Dr Alexander Morrison, Fellow and Tutor in History, New College, Oxford 

19. Professor Jeremy Smith, University of Eastern Finland 

20. Professor Guido Hausmann, Leibniz Institute for East and Southeast European Studies 

21. Professor Edmund Herzig, Professor of Persian Studies, University of Oxford 

22. Professor Bruce Grant, New York University 

23. Professor Jonathan Wheatley, Oxford Brookes University 

24. Professor Mirja Lecke, University of Regensburg, Germany 

25. Ambassador William Courtney (US, Retired) 

26. Ambassador Kenneth Yalowitz (US, Retired) 

27. Professor Timothy Blauvelt, Ilia State University 

28. Professor Julie George, CUNY and Columbia University 

29. Professor Robert Kindler, Freie Universität Berlin 

30. Prof. Dr. Theocharis Grigoriadis, Freie Universität Berlin 

31. Dr Tamara Dragadze, Visiting Professor, University of Westminster 

32. Professor Michael David-Fox, Director, Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies, School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University 

33. Dr Michel Abeßer, Assistant Professor, University of Freiburg, Germany 

34. Prof. Dr. Stefan Applis (Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg) 

35. Prof. Dr. Matthias Theodor Vogt, Dr. h.c. (Pécs University), Dr. h.c. (Ilia State University Tbilisi), Director Institut für kulturelle Infrastruktur Sachsen 

36. Dr Michael H. Cecire, Affiliated Scholar, Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies, Georgetown University 

37. Professor Dan Healey (Emeritus), University of Oxford 

38. PD. Dr. Kirsten Bönker, Nordost-Institut an der Universität Hamburg 

39. Professor Anne Meneley, Trent University 

40. Prof. Dr. Susanne Frank, Humboldt University of Berlin 

41. Prof. Dr. Riccardo Nicolosi, LMU University Munich 

42. Dr Riccardo Mario Cucciolla (University of Naples l'Orientale, Naples, Italy) 

43. Professor Alex Krouglov, UCL SSEES (University College London, School of Slavonic and East European Studies) 

44. Lesia Rubashova, Assoc. Professor, Research and Educational Center of Foreign Languages, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine 

45. Dr Rasmus Nilsson, Lecturer, UCL SSEES (University College London, School of Slavonic and East European Studies) 

46. Dr Peter Braga, Lecturer, UCL SSEES (University College London, School of Slavonic and East European Studies) 

47. Prof. Dr. Thomas Ertl, Freie Universitaet, Berlin 

48. Prof. Dr. Marc Junge, University of Erlangen, Germany, department for Eastern European history 

49. Professor Pamela Davidson, Russian literature, UCL SSEES (University College London, School of Slavonic and East European Studies) 

50. Dr. Philipp Christoph Schmädeke CEO Akademisches Netzwerk Osteuropa, akno e.V., Director SCIENCE AT RISK Emergency Office 

51. Professor Richard Mole, Political Sociology, UCL SSEES (University College London, School of Slavonic and East European Studies) 

52. Olivia Bailey, language coordinator, UCL SSEES (University College London, School of Slavonic and East European Studies) 

53. Dr Jessie Barton Hronesova, Lecturer, UCL SSEES (University College London, School of Slavonic and East European Studies) 

54. Dr Jakub Beneš, UCL SSEES (University College London, School of Slavonic and East European Studies) 

55. Prof. Dr. F. Benjamin Schenk (University of Basel) 

56. Professor Katie Campbell, King's College, University of Cambridge 

57. Professor Anke Hilbrenner, Institute for Historical Sciences, Heinrich Heine University, Düsseldorf, Germany 

58. Megi Kartsivadze, University College London 

59. Dr Hans Gutbrod, Ilia State University 

60. Professor Riccardo Nicolosi, LMU University Munich 

61. Dr. Mike Loader, University of Glasgow, UK 

62. Dr Yuliya Yurchuk, Assistant Professor, Södertörn University, Sweden 

63. Professor Antoon de Baets, em. University of Groningen (The Netherlands) 

64. Professor Gesine Drews-Sylla, Neuphilologisches Institut - Slavistik, Julius-Maximilians Universität Würzburg 

65. Dr Abraham Florin, Associate Professor in Political Science at the Faculty of Communication of the National University of Political Science and Public Administration, Bucharest