Two studies present new findings on the state of play of academic freedom, its challenges as well as opportunities for improvement in the EU Member States.
Academic freedom is a fundamental European value represented by Article 13 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights as well as policy initiatives such as the Bologna Process or the European Universities Initiative (EUI). The concept starts from the premise that an adequate functioning of academic systems depends on the degree to which academics have the freedom to pursue their own research and teaching agendas without fear of repression, job loss, or imprisonment. The idea remains, unfortunately, a desired scenario as existing indexes, monitors, and literature are pointing to worries about the state of play of academic freedom in the EU Member States (MS). However, it is challenging to make representative statements and conclusions on the status quo of academic freedom due to the lack of a common definition and mutually agreed on indicators.
In this context, the European University Association (EUA) highlighted in mid-April the importance of academic freedom and institutional autonomy to support the protection of European democracy in their response to the Defence of Democracy Package presented by the European Commission, continuing the European Students’ Union (ESU) discussion at the beginning of the year regarding a report offering insights on the state of academic freedom for students in Europe (see SwissCore article). The League of European Research Universities (LERU) published in the same month an updated version of their legal document on academic freedom as a fundamental right. LERU sets a focus on the developments in legislation and jurisprudence and proposes concrete recommendations to European and national policymakers and legislators. Moreover, the Committee on Culture and Education (CULT) discussed on 27 March in the European Parliament findings and recommendations on academic freedom of two recent publications of the European Parliament’s STOA Panel.
The first study presents the current trends and developments of academic freedom in the EU MS. The study starts with an outline of the underlying factors of erosion of academic freedom and focuses, in a second step, on the basic dimensions (freedom of research, freedom to teach and learn, and freedom of expression) and on the four contextual conditions (institutional autonomy, self-governance, academic labour conditions and financial conditions of academics) to examine the state of play. By observing the public debates over the past five years in the MS in these domains, the study identified political interference in determining the scientific validation of academic fields as one of the main threats as well as the governmental interference on institutional autonomy, institutional leadership and management or the growing influence of the civil society and private sector, for example. However, the situation is different in every MS depending on the political situation and other influencing actors. Furthermore, the authors propose several policy options, such as the contribution of the European Parliament STOA Panel to create a unified definition of academic freedom in the EU, the production of monitoring reports or the establishment of a European platform where violation of academic freedom can be reported.
Complementary to the results on the status quo in the MS, the second study provides an overview on monitoring academic freedom and recommendations for improvement. The study is based on a comparative analysis of ten evaluation methods assessing academic freedom, including, among others, the Academic Freedom Index (AFI), the European University Association’s University Autonomy Scorecard, and the Academic Freedom Monitoring Project by Scholars at Risk.
From a theoretical point of view, academic freedom consists of several elements divided between essential factors and supporting elements (see study on monitoring academic freedom). Essential factors not only involve the freedom of teaching, research or learning but also the freedom of dissemination, referring to free and unrestricted sharing of knowledge and research results. Furthermore, academic community members should be able to participate actively in decisions affecting teaching conditions of teaching and research what can be summarised under self-governance. To protect these essential factors, supporting elements from the wider context come into play which include institutional autonomy, employment security, and financial security. Their presence assumes a protective function from corruption, cronyism within academic institutions or poor academic integrity. To ensure that the academic institution functions in the spirit of academic freedom, policymakers and the wider society need to provide the right conditions. The review demonstrates that the existing methods either do not use a systematic and consistent approach or that academic freedom is only partially or superficially addressed, thus lacking the depth with detailed data for conclusions. Challenges for an efficient evaluation of academic freedom are i. the complex concept of academic freedom, ii. the gap between the legally defined requirements and practical implementation, iii. differences between countries in terms of sector and institutions, iv. violations of academic freedom by different actors such as the state, companies or academia itself, and v. hidden forms of violation of academic freedom, such as self-censorship or corruption.
To counteract the lack of qualitative monitoring of academic freedom, the study recommends developing a new academic freedom monitoring tool focusing on EU MS and considering specific policy options. Regarding the monitoring instrument, it should feature a comprehensive and systematic approach with the idea of comparability as well as make the integration of existing and future results of evaluation methods possible. Moreover, the independent and formative tool should be able to contextualise the observations of existing assessment methods to make developments and worrying trends, such as the disappearance of supportive elements, visible. In terms of the policy recommendations, the study proposes to focus on a binding legal definition of academic freedom as well as on synergies between the European Education Area (EEA), the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) and the European Research Area (ERA) to exchange on existing assessment methods and to develop monitoring mechanisms. In addition, an independent academic freedom monitoring procedure is recommended, which could embody a combined approach involving surveys, self-evaluation reports with visiting committees, and complaint procedures, for instance.
To conclude, it can be highlighted that academic freedom still faces challenges, be it in terms of a common definition, the protection of the essential and supporting conditions or the establishment of systematic monitoring. However, the European Commission and EHEA already have plans to strengthen and monitor academic freedom in the future, even if the exact implementation still needs to be defined.