Nominees for BRISMES Council (2026-2029)

Amira Abdelhamid

Amira is Director of the Research and Monitoring Department at the European Legal Support Center (ELSC), where she leads research and documentation work on political repression and academic freedom across Europe. She holds a PhD in International Relations from the University of Sussex and previously lectured at the University of Portsmouth, where she experienced attacks on her own academic freedom. During this period, both the ELSC and the BRISMES Committee on Academic Freedom (CAF) provided important support, shaping her commitment to collective forms of academic solidarity and advocacy. She later joined the ELSC in order to contribute to this work in return, and became a member of CAF in July 2024 to help strengthen protections for others facing similar challenges. Since joining CAF, she has contributed to drafting letters and statements defending academic freedom as inseparable from broader political and emancipatory concerns, including work on statements addressing the boycott of Israeli institutions and the relationship between academic freedom, freedom of movement, and the right to life. Through her candidacy for the BRISMES Council, she hopes to build on this experience by supporting a more engaged, principled, and collectively responsive scholarly community.