Academic unions demand action over academic freedom threats

Academic trade unions from Iceland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland presented a report on academic freedom at universities to the 2024 session of the Nordic Council which called for renewed efforts to protect academic freedom which they say is increasingly under pressure in the region.

The Nordic Council session, which convened under the theme “Peace and Security in the Arctic and Nordic regions”, was held in Iceland from 28 to 31 October.

The report, Academic Freedom in the Nordics: Legislation, Practice, Challenges: A report from Nordic academic trade unions 2024, was written by representatives of Nordic trade unions organising academics at higher education institutions.

It assembles and presents accessible information on the conditions for academic freedom – both de jure and de facto – in the Nordic countries and is a repository for comparative work on academic freedom at universities.

The co-authors and editorial group responsible are: Jon Iddeng and Jorunn Dahl Norgård (Norway, Norwegian Association of Researchers), Petri Mäntysaari (Finnish Union of University Professors, Karin Åmossa and Haro de Grauw (Swedish Association of University Teachers and Researchers, SULF), Brian Arly Jacobsen and Frederik Hertel (the Danish Association of Masters and PhDs, DM), Ármann Höskuldsson, Hólmfríður Garðarsdóttir and Henry Alexander Henrysson (Iceland).

Besides laying out a framework for understanding academic freedom as a public good and an international obligation, the report, commissioned by the trade unions of higher educational institutions at a Nordic Meeting in 2023, presents an overview of common challenges and what is particular to each country in separate national chapters from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden.

Global benchmark

The report argues that the Nordic perspective on academic freedom is of comparative interest in a world where academic freedom is under pressure.

“Academic freedom in the Nordic countries is under pressure from a range of factors that must be addressed to maintain the region’s leadership in independent research and education,” it states.

“While the Nordic model has long been a global benchmark, challenges such as managerialism, external funding dependence, undue political interference, precarious employment, and the hardening of public debate threaten the core principles of academic freedom.

“We, Nordic academic trade unions, are united in our commitment to protecting this freedom, ensuring that it remains a foundation of democratic societies and intellectual progress,” it notes.

The report argues that measures derived from the 2024 Academic Freedom Index (AFI) report are “disheartening” when it comes to academic freedom on a global scale.

It noted that while the Nordic countries perform well on AFI indicators, a recent review of both the de jure and de facto protection of academic freedom in light of the Nordic model also shows a negative trend marked by “increased institutional managerial autonomy” which has reduced individual autonomy, “as well as altering governance structures to the detriment of academic participation in decision-making along with (in some nations) a weakening of employment protection”.

Thus, legislative protection for academic freedom for teaching and research still exists, but its foundations have been inexorably hollowed out, it notes.

The report analyses five key challenges to academic freedom in the Nordics, which include: diminished collegial governance and academic autonomy; external pressures and funding dependence; political and ideological influence; precarious employment; and harassment and threats to free expression.

Media campaign

Coinciding with the presentation of the report to the Nordic Council was an opinion piece published in Altinget in Denmark under the title “Academic freedom in the Nordic Area is under threat: Time for action”.

It was written by Sanna Wolk (leader of SULF), Guro E Lind (leader of the Norwegian Association of Researchers), Brian Arly Jacobsen (chair of DM University, Denmark), Sigrún Ólafsdóttir (president of Félag prófessora við lævháskóla, that is the Association of State University Professors, Iceland) and Petri Mäntysaari (deputy chairman of the Professors’ Association, Finland).

The article argued that the Nordic Council “has to start working with a growing and acute challenge: the protection of the academic freedom” and called on members of parliament to commit themselves to “defend the basic principles on academic freedom and protect our academic institutions”.

“For decades the Nordic region has been a global role model on how higher education is protected from political, commercial and ideological pressure. Our academic institutions have flourished without external influence.

“Academic freedom has contributed to technological and social innovations, high quality of life and exceptionally strong democracies in the Nordic countries. Today this is under threat,” they argue.

They also say that a weakening of academic freedom in the Nordic region “could lead to a disturbing precedent with impact far outside our borders”.

“We demand that our parliamentarians oblige themselves to defend the basic principles of academic freedom and protect the autonomy of our higher education institutions so that we can keep our world leading role within science and education”, the debate article stated.

“We urge the Nordic Council and the Nordic governments to act quickly in these questions to ringfence the basic democratic principles,” the five authors write.

In comments to University World News Jacobsen, one of the authors of the Denmark section of the report, said: “In Denmark, academic freedom faces a particularly pressing challenge as governmental governance intensifies, distinguishing it as perhaps the strictest example among Nordic countries.

“This top-down control, largely indifferent to the support or dissent of academic institutions and their staff, erodes the fundamental democratic values that underpin independent research and teaching.

Academic freedom should not only protect knowledge production but also ensure that decision-making in universities remains a shared responsibility, preserving institutional autonomy.

“When decision-making becomes centrally controlled and commercial priorities increasingly shape research agendas, Denmark risks setting a troubling precedent within the Nordic region, threatening a system once celebrated for its democratic principles and intellectual independence.”

Lind, one of the authors of the Altinget opinion piece, said: “There is a growing sense that academic freedom is under pressure in Norway as well, especially regarding free speech and participation in public discourse.

“What stands out in our own survey is the shared view that the universities do little to educate their employees and the public in the core values and necessity of academic freedom and do too little to protect scholars against harassment or outside pressure. This has to change.”

Nordic exceptionalism

Professor Ole Petter Ottersen, former rector of the University of Oslo and former president of Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm and now visiting professor at The Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin (Charité – Berlin University Medicine), told University World News it was time for “introspection” by the Nordic countries.

“For too long we have taken academic freedom for granted. We have been blinded by the idea that we have a ‘Nordic model’ that sets us apart from countries in the former Eastern Europe and beyond, where academic freedom is under threat or in decline.

“We must let go of the ‘Nordic exceptionalism’ and scrutinise the status of academic freedom and the factors that infringe on it in our own countries. Thus, I applaud and fully support the initiative that has been taken by the academic trade unions of the five Nordic countries,” he stated.

Ottersen said a recent paper by Terence Karran and colleagues, Academic freedom in Scandinavia: Has the Nordic model survived? concluded that in the Nordic states “there has been an erosion of the supportive elements of academic freedom, following university reforms that implemented new public management techniques”.

He said academic freedom should be better protected by law, and the societal value of academic freedom should be better communicated – to the society at large, but also within the individual higher education institutions.

“In addition to the threats identified in the report – precarious employment, harassment, and excessive dependence on external funding being among them – there is a new and substantial danger on the horizon: the increased focus on security when it comes to international collaboration.

“Academic freedom is also the freedom to select international partners for collaborative research. Obviously, this must be done with due attention to risks and ethics and to the need to avoid transfer of knowledge and technology when this is clearly undesirable.

“Earlier this year, the EU council issued recommendations on how to address risks derived from international co-operation,” he noted.

Ottersen said while the present geopolitical situation calls for new measures, it is important that rules and regulations for research security are crafted and applied “with utmost care to avoid undue encroachments on academic freedom”.

Åmossa, head of policy and international affairs at SULF, said the report highlights that there are “threats against academic freedom in the Nordic countries today and that we have to stay alert to defend and strengthen it for the purpose of pursuing knowledge independently and uphold high standards of integrity and rigour, free from undue external pressure”.

“The Nordics are not immune to a decline in academic freedom or challenges against democracy in the outside world. Therefore, the time is now if we want to keep and strengthen the freedoms that we have, of which academic freedom is an important one,” she explained.