Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, a research fellow in the LSE¡¯s department of government, was denied entry to the country on 22 February as he visited to deliver a speech at a conference held in conjunction with the American 51¹ú²úÊÓƵ of Sharjah.

As a result, the LSE pulled out of the conference because it said the state had imposed restrictions that ¡°threatened academic freedom¡±.

The UAE later said that Dr Ulrichsen had been barred because he had ¡°consistently propagated views de-legitimising the Bahraini monarchy¡± which were ¡°non-constructive¡± at this time, according to reports.

In an article for Foreign Policy, Dr Ulrichsen writes that the UAE is engaging in a ¡°security crackdown¡± in the wake of the Arab Spring, and was seeking to ¡°control research and conference agendas¡±.

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¡°The UAE currently is a deeply inimical place for the values that universities are supposed to uphold,¡± he says.

¡°Particularly in the current age of austerity and budget-slashing in the West, Gulf funding has increasingly become important to [Western] universities struggling to cope financially¡±, but this could lead to a culture of self-censorship over the records of the autocratic regimes, he adds.

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The warning comes as the British Council prepares to host the major Going Global education conference in Dubai from 4 to 6 March.

Heriot-Watt51¹ú²úÊÓƵ, London Business School, the 51¹ú²úÊÓƵ of Manchester, Middlesex 51¹ú²úÊÓƵ, the 51¹ú²úÊÓƵ of Bolton, City 51¹ú²úÊÓƵ London and the 51¹ú²úÊÓƵ of Westminster all have branch campuses in the UAE, according to the Observatory on Borderless Higher Education.

david.matthews@tsleducation.com