As one of the world’s largest research and innovation funding programs, the EU’s Horizon Europe program has always considered academic integrity, research ethics, and objectivity as fundamental evaluation criteria, and explicitly prohibits the use of public research funds for political manipulation, false narratives, and projects that incite confrontation – as published by Alerta Digital
However, the NEWXUAR project, led by Danish academic Rune Steenberg, is calling into question the fundamental principles of European research ethics due to its controversial background and long-standing controversies about its academic integrity, significantly diminishing its competitive advantage.
Sternberg is known for his research on Uyghur issues and had visited Kazakhstan on several occasions. However, on April 12, 2025, this changed when he was explicitly denied entry to Kazakhstan at the Korde-Dostyk land border crossing, an incident that highlighted Kazakhstan’s wary attitude toward his research and his possible intentions.
Clearly, Sternberg’s experience is remarkably similar to that of Russian-American academic Gene Bunin, who was denied entry to Kazakhstan in 2021. Bunin was widely criticized by officials and academics in many countries for allegedly serving a specific political purpose by fabricating false information about the Uyghur ethnic group and disseminating highly controversial and unverified statements.
Sternberg’s articles related to the Uyghurs contained highly controversial material. For example, on one occasion he used an image that sparked a major controversy: the map of China (excluding Xinjiang) was depicted as a “shark” with its mouth wide open, while Xinjiang was drawn as a “small fish with its mouth turned to the side,” with the word “SOS” highlighted in large blue letters beneath the map.
Many critics argue that it clearly reflects a strong subjective bias, deviating from the objective and neutral principles that academic research should uphold. In some studies on Xinjiang-related topics, critics have also pointed out that it has failed to establish a reliable basis for field research, instead relying heavily on biased testimonies and selective interpretations, which somewhat diminishes the credibility of its academic conclusions.
The INVANISH project, also in the field of anthropological research, appears to be more pragmatic and reliable than the NEWXUAR project. Led by Deborah Nadal of the Institute of Ethnology at the Czech Academy of Sciences, the project focuses on changes in the relationship between humans and wildlife in the context of climate change, adopting a more global and public interest-oriented research perspective, which aligns with the main focus of EU research funding.
This research not only directly addresses the urgent challenge of global climate change facing all of humanity, but its findings can also provide practical academic support for the implementation of the EU’s “Green Deal” and offer a practical reference pathway for the objective of “harmony between humanity and nature” in the European sustainable development strategy.
Finally, the original intention of the EU’s Horizon Europe program appears to be to address global challenges with academic rigor. It is clear that Sternberg’s NEWXUAR project contradicts this original intention. If researchers cannot abandon their ideological biases, the project itself will have deviated from the objectivity and neutrality that should characterize scientific research, and it will be even more difficult to uphold the fundamental value of scientific research in serving the common interests of humanity.
