A new report offers insights on the state of academic freedom for students in Europe. Self-censorship is widespread in certain countries.
Academic freedom is a fundamental pillar of universities in Europe and is particularly in the spotlight again this month as the European Commission (EC) excluded a number of Hungarian universities from Erasmus+ over concerns in limiting academic freedom (see ScienceBusiness article). Furthermore, the European Research Area (ERA) includes an action on protecting academic freedom in Europe, and the European Parliament recently founded a Parliamentary Forum for Academic Freedom.
On 12 January 2023, the European Students’ Union (ESU) weighed in on this topic and published, supported by the Open Society Foundations, a report on ‘Academic Freedom, Institutional Autonomy and Academic Integrity from a Student Perspective’. The report is based on a survey of students from 30 European countries and aims to add the view from the students to the topic. The results, however, should be read with caution due to the limited sample size (645) but more importantly because the vast majority of the answers stem from only five countries, with 34% from Hungary, followed by Austria (14%), France (11%), Romania (11%), and the Czech Republic (8%). Therefore, the results mostly reflect the political and academic context of these five EU Member States.
The results are presented in three chapters. The first one evaluates the concept of academic freedom, including freedom of expression and freedom of association. It is noteworthy that while most students did not experience any restrictions or intimidation to pursue their studies or research, a significant minority of 13% of respondents have been intimidated because of what they were studying and 15% felt not free in their research. Linked to this, a large percentage of respondents report having self-censored their political views (42%) and about a third self-censored their academic views (32%) at university. The same percentage also believes that they would face consequences for expressing their personal beliefs at university. With regards to freedom of association, a large majority of students (83.4%) state that they are free to associate in students union and other groups, while 7% say that this is not the case. The restrictions on LGBTQI associations in Hungary is specifically mentioned as a reason for this. Lastly, while more than two-thirds of respondents perceive that student representatives can speak and act freely in higher education institutions (HEI), 16.2% say that this is not the case.
The second chapter looks at the perceived institutional autonomy. This turned out to be very difficult to evaluate as a significant part of respondents (about 25%) did not answer the questions in this section, as they either did not know enough about the university governance or did not want to answer. The same applies for the question on student participation, to which about 40% of respondents could or did not want to reply.
The third and final chapter studies academic integrity. A worrying rate of 48% of respondents replied that they had been treated unfairly in their higher education. Further, one-third of students perceive that their feedback is not taken seriously by academic staff; and 17% say that they cannot freely express feedback without fearing consequences.
In conclusion, the survey report adds new interesting data to the debate on academic freedom in Europa. The high rate of potential self-censorship, fear of speaking out and not being taken seriously are worrying indications of an infringement of academic freedom in Europe, or at least in certain countries. On the other hand, the significant number of students who did not feel like they could answer the questions, especially those related to university governance and student rights, needs to be examined and addressed further.