‘Academic freedom in a new era’ was the focus of the annual meeting of European National Young Academies (ENYAs) which took place in Stockholm on 2-3 May 2023, in an era defined by political unrest, soaring inflation and increasing distrust in science driving the ‘call to arms’ from all young academies to defend academic freedom. Anna Kuppuswamy (YAE selection committee vice-chair) represented the Young Academy of Europe on this meeting, please find her detailed report on the event below.
Day one of the meeting which took place in the elegant surrounds of the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, history and antiquities, was a frenzy of activity around developing a Charter for Academic Freedom led by the Swedish Young Academy, soon to be ratified by all European academies. While academic freedom is taken for granted in some countries, some others have very little of, and fast-moving political events around the world are likely to adversely infringe on academic freedom even in those countries that are normally free. Academic freedom is distinct to freedom of speech and is not offered any protection in law in any country.
The charter is an attempt to highlight this problem and to think of developing safeguards for academic freedom. While all participating academies agreed on the fundamental principle of academic freedom, how one funds such freedom was far from uncontroversial, which is highly dependent on the individual country’s funding mechanisms. The full day’s work was followed by a drinks reception hosted by the City of Stockholm and a tour of the magnificent Gold Room (walls made of actual gold, 11kgs of it!) with frescos depicting the history of the city. The evening wound down with a tour and dinner at the Nobel Museum where one was reminded at every turn of the importance of academic freedom.
Day two was hosted by the Royal Academy of Sciences with a full day of talks from a range of speakers including representatives of funding agencies, philosophers, political scientists, economists and biomedical scientists discussing the rapidly changing trends in various countries that promotes curbing of academic freedom. As a clinical neuroscientist myself, these talks were eye opening and was a far cry from discussing problems of how the brain works. The direct links between autocratic regimes and lack of academic freedom was highlighted with the worrying trend of over 43 countries in the world moving towards such regimes, when compared to only 18 a decade ago. A starker analysis of the data by the Academic Freedom Index project Academic Freedom Index (academic-freedom-index.net) made for very grim reading. Funding criteria was also discussed in the light of such lack of academic freedom, and the importance of questioning established norms as the bedrock of innovation is all but disappearing with the propensity to value consensus over disruption. The Swedish Young Academy must be commended for such a well-organised event, and I came away with a head full of ideas and a renewed conviction on the importance of Young Academies, especially one like the YAE which is borderless (within Europe).