Academic freedom in decline in Europe and around the world

Aca­dem­ic free­dom has been stead­ily declin­ing world­wide for the past 15 years, accord­ing to the Aca­dem­ic Free­dom Index (AFI). In recent years, many demo­cra­cies have con­trib­uted to this decline, includ­ing the United States and the United Kingdom. 

The find­ings of the 2026 AFI report¹ are damning: between 2015 and 2025, as many as 50 coun­tries recor­ded a sub­stan­tial and stat­ist­ic­ally sig­ni­fic­ant decline in their aca­dem­ic free­dom index, com­pared with only 9 that saw an increase. The AFI report, pro­duced by research­ers at Friedrich-Alex­an­der Uni­ver­sity and the V‑Dem pro­ject, provides an annu­al assess­ment of the effect­ive pro­tec­tion of aca­dem­ic free­dom in 179 coun­tries. It is based on five indic­at­ors: three relat­ing to indi­vidu­al dimen­sions (free­dom of research and teach­ing, free­dom of aca­dem­ic exchange and dis­sem­in­a­tion, and free­dom of aca­dem­ic and cul­tur­al expres­sion), and two con­cern­ing insti­tu­tion­al dimen­sions (insti­tu­tion­al autonomy and cam­pus integrity).

“The AFI relies on expert assess­ments, which intro­duces a degree of sub­jectiv­ity. Yet the V‑Dem meth­ods used to aggreg­ate expert judg­ments ensure val­id and reli­able estim­ates,” notes Angelo Vito Panaro. “How­ever, we always recom­mend using uncer­tainty inter­vals when mak­ing com­par­is­ons over time and between countries”.

Until now, it was widely believed that aca­dem­ic free­dom remained strong in lib­er­al demo­cra­cies. That is no longer the case, and the United States stands out for both the speed and scale of its decline: still at 0.91 (out of 1) in 2019, the country’s index fell to 0.4 in 2025. This decline is even faster than that observed in some coun­tries under­go­ing “auto­crat­isa­tion”², such as Tur­key (AFI 0.09, down 0.46 over 15 years) or India (AFI 0.14, down 0.51), where the erosion has kept pace with “polit­ic­al attacks, leg­al reforms, and admin­is­trat­ive interventions.”

In the United States, the decline “began around 2020, largely fueled by state-level actions in sev­er­al states,” such as the Flor­ida governor’s sign­ing of the Stop WOKE Act in 2022, or the laws passed by the legis­latures of Texas, North Dakota, Flor­ida, and Iowa to reduce pro­tec­tions related to incum­bent status. “It intens­i­fied in 2025 under the second Trump admin­is­tra­tion, driv­en by an unpre­ced­en­ted set of coer­cive fed­er­al exec­ut­ive actions that amp­li­fied and fueled the pres­sure exer­ted by states on autonom­ous uni­ver­sit­ies,” the AFI report notes.

This col­lapse is all the more con­cern­ing because it is uni­ver­sal in scope. China (AFI of 0.07 in 2025) and the United States alone account for between one-third and one-half of the world’s sci­entif­ic pub­lic­a­tions³. “In the US, the ini­tial decline began in 2020, driv­en largely by state-level actions. It intens­i­fied in 2025 under the second Trump admin­is­tra­tion, driv­en by an unpre­ced­en­ted array of coer­cive fed­er­al exec­ut­ive meas­ures that amp­li­fied and fueled state-level pres­sures on autonom­ous uni­ver­sit­ies,” warns the Balme report⁴ on aca­dem­ic free­dom, pro­duced for France Uni­versités and pub­lished in Octo­ber 2025.

In Europe, the situ­ation is deteri­or­at­ing, but aca­dem­ic free­dom is still bet­ter pro­tec­ted there than else­where. “To date, it remains the only region­al area where this found­ing prin­ciple of intel­lec­tu­al life con­tin­ues to be, over­all, insti­tu­tion­ally guar­an­teed,” states the Balme report, des­pite faint signs “that are already alarm­ing in some cases.” This is the case in the UK (0.67 com­pared to 0.93 in 2015), where uni­ver­sit­ies have under­gone gradu­al privat­iz­a­tion over the past 40 years, while remain­ing sub­ject to strict state reg­u­la­tion⁵. Hun­gary offers an even more dra­mat­ic example, fol­low­ing Vikt­or Orbán’s attacks on the uni­ver­sity sys­tem: its score fell from 0.95 in 2008 to 0.3 in 2025. 

In oth­er EU coun­tries, the indices range from 0.68 (Greece) to 0.98 (Czech Repub­lic). Ten of these coun­tries have exper­i­enced a decline deemed sig­ni­fic­ant by research­ers over the past dec­ade. In France, the index remained remark­ably stable until 2024 (around 0.88). It exper­i­enced a slight dip in 2025 (0.8), which will need to be con­firmed to be con­sidered sig­ni­fic­ant. On the east­ern bor­der of the EU, the decline that began in the 1990s and 2000s in Belarus (0.06 in 2025, com­pared to a brief high of 0.58 in 1994) and in Rus­sia (0.18 in 2025, 0.82 in 1999) has continued.

In both the United States and Europe, cer­tain polit­ic­al nar­rat­ives argue that uni­ver­sit­ies today are dom­in­ated by homo­gen­eous ideo­lo­gic­al currents—generally lib­er­al or left-wing—a situ­ation that mar­gin­al­ises crit­ic­al or dis­sent­ing voices and erodes plur­al­ism. From this per­spect­ive, the main threats to aca­dem­ic free­dom stem not from dir­ect state inter­ven­tion but from these inform­al social pressures.

The AFI study sheds light on this per­spect­ive. “Our find­ings sug­gest that insti­tu­tion­al autonomy plays a key role in pro­tect­ing the indi­vidu­al dimen­sions of aca­dem­ic free­dom. Weak autonomy makes schol­ars more vul­ner­able to extern­al pres­sures. Con­versely, where autonomy is strong, freedoms in research and teach­ing tend to be stronger as well,” explains Angelo Vito Panaro. Uni­ver­sit­ies with a high degree of autonomy are thus bet­ter equipped to res­ist extern­al pres­sures, ensure mer­it-based hir­ing, and provide a safe envir­on­ment for research­ers whose work chal­lenges dom­in­ant polit­ic­al, eco­nom­ic, or ideo­lo­gic­al interests.

Interview by Anne Orliac