This paper explore the organisational logics of Russian academia in exile by approaching those organisations as liminal spaces. The paper conceptualises these entities as transitional sites where rupture from the home environment creates fertile ground for rethinking pedagogical and scholarly practices under conditions of professional uncertainty. Such liminality, however, operates in both directions: it may serve as an accelerator of experimentation that encouraging innovation in curricula design, teaching methods, and collaborative research; or, conversely, as a catalyst for retreat into traditional (namely hierarchical) formats as a means of safeguarding academic identity. By analysing how scholars negotiate this tension between experimentation and continuity, the paper examines the ways in which organisational space mediates responses to exile, enabling both radical re-imagining and conservative preservation. Drawing on qualitative data from interviews, organisational documents, and systematic mapping, the paper illuminates the ambivalent dynamics through which displaced academics reconfigure their professional praxis, thus contributing to broader debates on how authoritarian repression and forced migration reshape global knowledge infrastructures.
