“Academic freedom in the 21st century” was the title of the meeting of the Wenner-Gren Foundations and Academia Europaea HERCulES Task Force dedicated to Higher Education, Research and Culture in European Societies, where Anna Kuppuswamy (Selection Committee Vice-Chair) represented the Young Academy of Europe on the 15-17th of May 2024, in Stockholm. Former YAE members, Gemma Modinos (former YAE Chair) and Alban Kellerbauer (former YAE Treasurer, MAE) were featured in the closing panel of the event. Please find the detailed programme of the event here, and a personal note about the event by Anna Kuppuswamy below.
A year after the ENYA meeting at Stockholm, where several young academies debated the constraints and pressures faced by young academics (later summarized and published as the Stockholm Charter for Academic Freedom – Academic Freedom), the Academia Europea brought together its task force of senior academics to debate the nature of threats to academic freedom. The last 12 months have seen unprecedented developments in the world that have placed severe constraints on how some academics are allowed to operate. This has given cause to stop and reflect on the larger forces at play in the generation and dissemination of knowledge, and what it means to have academic freedom.
Furthering the boundaries of knowledge has never been easy, and over the centuries this endeavour has had to contend with multiple challenges that are reflective of the times. Today, the enterprise of research, higher education and dissemination of knowledge is a complex, multi-stakeholder activity that relies on large institutions such as universities, publishing industry and funding agencies, each with their individual agendas, but must all work in tandem, to facilitate the quest for knowledge. Political pressures, economic end goals and immediate crises that need rapid solutions have all infringed on what, and how academics are able to conduct research, thereby curtailing academic freedom. Two days of intense debate on the themes of academic freedom of institutions, research, education, and dissemination saw expert presentations and heated debates. I won’t go into details of the presentations, but suffice to say, academic freedom is under severe threat for different reasons in different countries, including in those countries where it appears as if it is ‘business as usual’. The significant shift in the role of universities, which were once places where knowledge was generated and imparted, now viewed as training grounds for the job market largely driven by economic forces, has impacted on how universities are governed, placing enormous constraints on staff’s academic freedom. Similar utilitarian agendas govern both the funding and publishing landscapes. The last few years have seen a genuine intent to intervene, with some strong leadership emerging in areas such as funding structures and publishing practices to rethink how incentives are used within the research landscape with the aim of restoring academic freedom.
While the last few decades have seen rapid changes in forces infringing on academic freedom, the core principles of knowledge generation have also been evolving, with increasing recognition of interdisciplinary methods as being vital to generating new knowledge. The theme of how interdisciplinarity interacts with academic freedom was conspicuous in its absence at this conference. What struck me was the reference to ‘dilution’ of rigour that was referenced in more than one presentation as being a threat to academic freedom, and examples discussed were pertaining to interdisciplinary methodology. As a mid-career scientist who heavily relies on interdisciplinary methods to address pathological functioning of the brain, this perspective rankled. When quizzed, it seemed to open up a can of worms. While everyone agreed there must be no compromise on rigour, there is no easy answer to how one assesses the quality of interdisciplinary research. As a representative of the YAE, I was glad to have raised this issue which appears to be less of a problem for the established senior members of academia unlike our membership base of emerging leaders. With the leadership of HERCulES Task Force changing hands next year to Prof Milena Žic-Fuchs, I was delighted when the future chair of HERCulES thanked me for my contributions and hinted at next year’s theme potentially revolving around interdisciplinary research. We would also like to express our gratitude towards Prof Lars Engwall, the actual Chair of the Task Force, who was also strongly devoted to involving YAE members and early- to mid-career researchers in this task force and in previous conferences (e.g. the meeting in 2023 dedicated to Academic Publishing where Scott Bremer and Katalin Solymosi, YAE Vice-Chairs, represented us).
On a personal level, I have always found that I come away with more energy from a non-discipline specific conference than a discipline specific one! And this conference was no different, with the discipline furthest from my own, stimulating the most interesting of discussions, and in this instance, English and comparative literature! On that positive note, I look forward to the prospect of closer working between YAE and AE in the coming year.