The European Parliament’s STOA panel held a conference on academic freedom, emphasising that even small threats could add up.
In 2022, the European Parliament’s Panel for the Future of Science and Technology (STOA) launched the Forum for Academic Freedom to foster discussions on the challenges the topic faces in today’s political landscape. At this year’s edition of the forum’s annual high-level conference in Brussels, it became evident that academic freedom is one of the issues enjoying broad consensus among EU political representatives and research and innovation stakeholders. All participants agreed: Academic freedom is worth protecting.
The conference featured high-level keynote speeches, all underscoring the vital role of academic freedom in fostering excellent and competitive research. European Parliament President Roberta Metsola stressed that competitiveness cannot exist without academic freedom. Representing the Polish Presidency, Andrzej Szeptycki, Undersecretary of State in the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, argued for a broad understanding of academic freedom. According to Szeptycki academic freedom goes beyond freedom from ideological or political pressure, as it also depends on access to data, infrastructure and other conditions for research. Ekaterina Zaharieva, European Commissioner for Startups, Research, and Innovation, reiterated the importance of academic freedom, announcing that it will be a key element of the upcoming ERA Act, a legislative proposal aimed at strengthening the European Research Area, expected in 2026. Member of the European Parliament Christian Ehler (EPP, Germany), chair of the STOA Panel, hosted the conference. Ehler emphasised that while academic freedom may not be systematically violated in EU member states, numerous small threats at different levels create a concerning trend.
The keynote speeches were followed by panel discussions and sessions, where politicians, experts and academics discussed the state of academic freedom in Europe and how it can be strengthened. One of many points worth highlighting from the discussion is the question of competences. On the side of the European Commission, Director-General of DG RTD Marc Lemaître pointed out that legal proposals from the European Commission must be based on a clear competence and backed up by the Treaty. Where academic freedom concerns education, the EU’s competence is formally limited to a supplementary role – it cannot harmonise national laws. When it comes to research, however, the European Research Area has full legitimacy to guarantee the security of academic research.
MEP Ehler concluded the conference on a positive note, highlighting that the strong support for the STOA exercise in the Parliament, together with the European Commission’s plan for a legislative act on this topic, signals a promising step towards a solid legal basis for academic freedom.
The background document for the conference discussion was the 2024 edition of the European Parliament’s Academic Freedom Monitor. While the report itself has not been published yet, we already learn about its key findings from the STOA briefing document. Some of the key issues discussed at the conference are explored in the Academic Freedom Monitor.
The Monitor contains results of two studies. The first one – a de facto study – concerns the actual situation regarding academic freedom in the EU. The second one – a de jure study – gives an overview of constitutional provisions on academic freedom protection in all member states. Overall, the results of the de facto study show that while there is no systematic violation of academic freedom in the EU, there is reason for concern about general trends in the analysed countries, where simultaneous threats are emerging. There are a several main sources of concern: Political interference is observed through direct violations and indirect policy changes, institutional leadership actions including censorship and problematic personnel policies. In addition, internal academic community pressures through attempts to silence dissenting voices are another source of concern. Attacks on academics from civil society were also observed, particularly on social media. Moreover, the private sector may potentially influence academia through funding relationships; lastly, emerging security-related restrictions due to geopolitical tensions, especially regarding international academic collaboration and academic publishing, raise concerns. A key finding of the study, and one that emerged during the STOA conference, is that these threats are particularly evident in certain academic fields that are linked to politically charged debates, such as gender studies, virology and climate research. Among the countries of concern due to a remarkable decline in academic freedom between 2013 and 2023, the study identified Hungary, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Austria, and Poland, with Hungary’s situation being particularly alarming.
The de jure study shows that constitutional protection of academic freedom varies across EU Member States. Few explicitly use the term ‘academic freedom’ in their constitutions, instead protecting it through related concepts like ‘freedom of scientific research’ or ‘freedom of expression.’ However, academic freedom depends not only on constitutional texts but also on various constitutional provisions, court decisions, and other legal sources. We will learn about some of these complexities in the forthcoming study, which will include an in-depth analysis of the constitutional traditions of Germany, Greece, the Netherlands and Poland.