When They Say “No”: What the TenU Campaign Taught UAEM Europe

This post kicks off a short series looking back at UAEM Europe’s work in 2025. Throughout the year, chapters across Europe continued to push universities, researchers, and allies on access to medicines—often in a tough political climate where support existed in theory, but action was harder to secure. The TenU campaign, led by UAEM UK members, is one clear example of how students responded when progress slowed or doors closed, and why moving forward anyway mattered.

Why TenU Was a Strategic Target

TenU is a network of leading research universities focused on technology transfer and commercialization. While TenU does not make policy for universities, it plays an important role in shaping what is considered “normal” or “best practice” in licensing publicly funded research.

That matters for access to medicines.

If alliances like TenU treat Affordable Access Plans (AAPs) or the Equitable Technology Access Framework (ETAF) as optional add-ons, universities are far less likely to use them. If they treat them as standard practice, change can ripple across dozens of institutions at once.

This is why UAEM UK chose to engage TenU—not to single out one university, but to challenge a norm-setting space.

Momentum—and Then a Closed Door

The campaign gained public momentum in February 2025, when a UAEM UK member was interviewed for an article on socially responsible intellectual property licensing. In that interview, the student named TenU directly as a potential leader in normalizing access-oriented licensing—recognizing early steps while also being clear about their limits.

Not long after, TenU announced a summer webinar titled “TenU Hosts: Affordable Access.” For UAEM students, this immediately raised red flags. The panel was positioned to shape the conversation on affordability—but without any clear civil society or access-focused representation.

UAEM UK members reached out privately and respectfully, asking TenU leadership to include a civil society expert alongside the technical speakers. It was a modest, reasonable request.

After extended back-and-forth, TenU declined.

Choosing Escalation Without Burning Bridges

UAEM UK did not respond with a public call-out. Instead, students escalated thoughtfully.

They drafted a sign-on letter outlining specific, achievable demands: include one UAEM member with technical expertise and one civil society expert with experience in access-oriented trade mechanisms. They then reached out to allies.

Seventeen global health and health justice organizations signed on.

When the letter was presented, TenU announced that it would no longer move forward with the webinar, citing “untenable geopolitical circumstances”—a reference students understood in the context of growing political pressure on universities and research funding.

The event was cancelled. But the campaign didn’t end there.

——> Read the Sign-On letter here.

Taking Back the Conversation

Rather than letting TenU’s decision define the outcome, UAEM UK did something simple and powerful: they moved forward on their own.

Students began organizing the affordable access webinar they wished TenU had hosted in the first place. The panel centers student technical expertise and civil society voices—and importantly, it still invites TenU representatives to participate.

This moment marked a shift. UAEM UK showed that students don’t need institutional permission to convene serious, policy-relevant discussions. Credibility comes from preparation, expertise, and coalition—not logos on a flyer.

The campaign also gave other UAEM Europe chapters something concrete to learn from: how to engage in good faith, escalate strategically, and create independent spaces when official ones exclude key perspectives.

What UAEM Europe Took From the Campaign

The TenU campaign helped crystallize several lessons that shaped UAEM Europe’s work throughout 2025:

• Universities are often cautious, especially in uncertain political environments

• Coalitions create safety—for students and for institutions

• Hosting your own event is not antagonistic; it’s leadership

• Confidence grows when students trust their expertise instead of waiting for approval

The campaign did not result in an immediate policy shift from TenU. What it did produce was something longer-lasting: a clearer sense of student power, a stronger coalition, and a shared understanding that access advocacy doesn’t stop when institutions say no.