ECOLAS meeting in Amsterdam

On 17-18 October 2025, ECOLAS organised a meeting of various representatives of Liberal Arts programmes from across Europe. It took place at the Free University of Amsterdam, as a continuation of an expert meeting held by the Reading for Meaning and Purpose (REMAP) project. The latter aims to improve student reading practices, thereby helping students to find meaning and purpose in their lives, make them more resilient, and support their emotional, social and civic needs.

As well as REMAP participants, the subsequent ECOLAS meeting also attracted representatives from University College Freiburg, University College Maastricht and Utrecht University. Among the topics and discussions, the first looked at meaningful education in the age of AI, with panellists including Pano Kanelos, Iris van der Tuin and Samuel Abrahám. A second panel looked at the relationship between liberal arts and liberal democracy (with panellists Laurent Boetsch and Teun Dekker). The session concluded with a round table discussing international accreditation.

The ECOLAS event has also attracted several other institutions that are inspired by liberal arts, such as the University of Navarra, the Pascal Institute in Leiden, the emerging Lux Mundi college in Belgium and Oxford University. Finally, the meeting was attended by guests from the USA, the UK and Egypt: Pano Kanelos (Athos Group, founder and former President of the University of Austin, Texas), Daniel Robinson (Pharos Foundation, UK) and Ehab Abdul Rahman (American University in Cairo).

You can find here presentations by Laurent Boetsch and Hans Adriaansens on the topic of the relationship between liberal arts and liberal democracy.  Also attached is the programme of the conference.