A growing wave of academic boycotts against Israeli institutions is sweeping across universities worldwide, fueled by outrage over the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza. Over the past months, dozens of academic organizations have severed their relationships with Israeli institutions of higher education. By challenging these institutions, they hope to undermine Israel’s military occupation and call attention to Israel’s human rights abuses against Palestinians. The Israeli government has sought to push back hard against this trend. In May 2024, they promised €22m (£19m) to fight the Palestinian-led academic boycott.
Ilan Pappé, an outspoken critic of Israeli policies and a prominent historian, emphasized that the boycotts serve to highlight the consequences of Israel’s actions. He stated, “On the one hand, the Israeli government’s approach to Gaza has been hugely disproportionate, harming civilians, including young children, in the thousands.” Pappé hopes that these academic boycotts will ignite the necessary conversations. They speak out against Israeli academic institutions’ complicity in the Israeli government’s policies.
The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel has articulated that Israeli academic institutions play a role in what they describe as “Israel’s decades-long regime of military occupation, settler colonial apartheid and now genocide.” Making this idea a reality has found traction with an ever-growing number of scholars and institutions around the world. More than a dozen universities, including in Norway, Belgium, and Spain, have already cut ties with their Israeli partners. Furthermore, the Federal University of Ceará in Brazil recently canceled an ‘innovation’ summit that was to be held with an Israeli university.
Given these changes, it’s no surprise that many academic leaders have expressed disappointment at the impact that boycotts have achieved. Nobel Laureate Venki Ramakrishnan saw that this was a complicated picture. He noted that despite the many Israeli academics who oppose their own government, a total boycott would be a blanket punishment against those who already sympathize with the Palestinians’ plight.
“On the other hand, most Israeli academics I know, including several I count as my friends, detest Netanyahu and his government. A boycott of this would penalize those who are not responsible for the actions of the Israeli government, and who in fact are very sympathetic to the plight of Palestinians.” – Ilan Pappé
Even with these caveats, it seems that the tide for academic boycotts is on the rise. The European Commission has proposed partially suspending Israel from its Horizon Europe programme by July 2025 due to the impact of the boycott. This proposal comes at a time when Israel’s participation in EU-funded research has received a significant blow. In 2025, just 10 of these early-career researchers from Israel won coveted European Research Council grants, a plummet from 30 in 2024.
The budgetary ramifications for Israel’s economy, which in turn is highly dependent on science and technology industries, are already manifesting. Since the onset of the programme in 2021, Israel has received a net amount of €875.9 million (£740.4 million) from Horizon Europe in funding for scientific research. The drop in funding and collaboration opportunities may have long-term consequences for the state’s academic landscape.
A campaign has been supported by many British students and academics, this campaign has actively pushed for academic boycotts of Israeli institutions. As Ghassan Soleiman Abu-Sittah pointed out, university governing councils are often the main institutions preventing these movements. He stated, “The moral outrage about what the Israelis are doing is leading more and more academics to take personal decisions, not to have joint projects with Israelis.” Abu-Sittah thinks the threat of an academic boycott could create enough pressure on the Israeli government to force it to go back on some of its policies.
Pappé further explained that the majority of Israeli academics who oppose their government’s actions are too afraid to speak out publicly for fear of losing their jobs, as well. He remarked, “If it were so, I would have seen them among the few hundreds [of] brave Israelis who demonstrate against the war because it is genocide.” Yet he accuses Israeli universities of actively maintaining oppressive systems. They offer knowledge and capacity-building to the institutions responsible for executing repressive, lethal state violence against Palestinians.
“They provide courses and degrees to the secret service, police and are agencies of the government that are oppressing daily the Palestinians.” – Ilan Pappé
This debate around academic boycotts has played out from institutional contexts to local campuses. Perhaps that’s why a spokesperson from the rectors’ organization, Universities UK, was eager to spell out their commitment to fostering the free exchange of ideas. They stand against blanket academic boycotts, arguing that such measures violate academic freedom.
“As a representative body, Universities UK has a longstanding public position of being committed to the free exchange of ideas, regardless of nationality or location. As such we do not endorse blanket academic boycotts, as this would represent an infringement of academic freedom.” – Universities UK spokesperson