INFORMAZIONI UNIVERSITARIE

With the rise of populist leaders and increasingly authoritarian governments around the world, higher education and research are facing unprecedented threats to academic freedom and university autonomy. Over the past decade, academic freedom has declined in more than 22 countries representing more than half of the world's population, including India, China, Mexico, the United Kingdom and the United States, according to the Academic Freedom Index: Update 2023. Nathan M Greenfield reports on the worrying fall-off for academic freedom in key countries.
Michael Ignatieff, former vice-chancellor of the Central European University, says the way CEU was forced out of Hungary by right-wing populist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is serving as a script for today's culture war on universities in Florida and Governor Ron DeSantis's US presidential ambitions for 2024, Nathan M Greenfield reports. Suppression of freedom of speech and free elections are acknowledged as warning signs of democratic erosion. It is time for us to recognise attacks on academic freedom in a similar fashion and strengthen understandings of academic freedom as a foundational element of democracy, argue Hector Ulloa, Sunniva Whittaker and Svein Stølen. An organisation representing nearly a million doctoral candidates and postdocs across Europe, Eurodoc, has called on academic institutions and governments to improve conditions for early career researchers, arguing that their precarious existence endangers academic freedom, which is already under attack in many European countries. F: A University World News Special Focus 16.03.23.