Billari (Bocconi): 'The attack on universities is worrying'

"While we are making crucial choices on intergenerational equity, artificial intelligence, climate, social cohesion, we are witnessing a worrying phenomenon: universities, which have contributed so much to the well-being of the world, are being attacked".

The rector of the Bocconi University of Milan, Francesco Billari, said this loud and clear, in front of students, teaching staff, distinguished guests and authorities, on the occasion of the inauguration of the 2025-26 academic year. Moreover, 'this attack is also taking place in democracies, from the United States to Hungary, where ideological policies and identity pressures challenge autonomous academic innovation, censor programmes, limit freedom of research and the circulation of talent'.

And this, for the rector of the Milanese university, 'is a signal that concerns us all. Because if trust in universities is lost, one of the pillars of democracy is lost. It is in universities, in fact, that students' knowledge and social and emotional skills are developed. And it is from here that solutions, analyses, visions emerge."

In short, 'to attack the university is to strike at the space where, using the scientific method, the pluralism of ideas, the slowness necessary to understand, and reasoned dissent are cultivated. It means eroding the ground on which deeper freedoms are built: the freedom to think, to debate, to be active citizens'.

As bleak as it is, this scenario, according to Bocconi's president, Andrea Sironi, who opened the academic ceremony, "represents an obvious opportunity for Europe, which can encourage, at least in part, the return of male and female researchers, thus reversing the 'brain drain' that for decades characterised the relationship between the two continents and saw thousands of young people trained in European universities migrate to the United States".