This year’s first EDP meeting brought all of us to the Kulturwissenschaftliches Kolleg at the University of Konstanz, where Sonja Grimm is currently in residence. Our meeting specifically focused on discussing the research framework for our planned special issue as well as potential contributions and on ideas for a research grant proposal one of our members is currently working on. An issue that was on our minds’ over lunch and dinner conversations was the current precarious situation that academics face in Turkey but also in other regions of the world where academic freedom is increasingly restricted and scholars have faced severe threat. See, for example, the Public Statement of the Presidents and Chairs of Professional Associations on “International Studies” regarding the Persecution of Academics in Turkey, the EISA Board’s decision to not relocate the 10^th Paneuropean Conference on International Relations to be held in Izmir, but also the German Development Institute’s recent column on the murder of an Italian scholar in Egypt.