ESAF Project - European Societies and Academic Freedom - presents a cycle of 5 seminars involving scholars of different disciplinary background and provenience on the impact of academic freedom limitations and violations on the migration pathways of scholars. The seminars will engage with questions related to freedom of research, freedom to disseminate knowledge and how limitations of these principles create forced mobility and related brain drain effects. Our speakers will further discuss the entanglements between international politics, (cultural and science) diplomacy and the internationalization of higher education, and the intertwining effects of authoritarian regimes and neoliberal policies on higher education. The discussion will involve areas as different as Turkey, Mali, venezuela, Post Soviet Space, India and South Asia. The seminars are open to university members and the civil society.