Eurodoc statement on Academic Freedom

As a representative of Doctoral candidates and other Early Career Researchers (ECRs) in Europe, Eurodoc advocates for improving the conditions for ECRs as well as for all researchers regarding Academic Freedom. While the conditions of Doctoral Candidates and ECRs vary greatly across Europe, it must be recognised that they are professionals and  academia is their workplace – Academic Freedom thus concerns them as well.

In the Rome Ministerial Communique, academic freedom is defined as "The freedom of academic staff and students to engage in research, teaching, learning and communication in and with society without interference nor fear of reprisal." 

Academic freedom is the freedom of researchers at all levels, and thus it also concerns the academic freedom of doctoral candidates and other early career researchers, just as it concerns the academic freedom of more senior researchers and students.

However, from Eurodoc's perspective, there are two aspects of academic freedom that must always be considered, institutional academic freedom and individual academic freedom. These two are not competing from our perspective but are instead closely interlinked.  There can be no institutional academic freedom if there is no academic freedom for the individual, and likewise, there can be no proper academic freedom for the individual if there is not also institutional academic freedom. 

An important part of institutional academic freedom is the independence of academic institutions from governments and others. Here, sufficient funding of academic institutions plays an important role. Academic freedom of individual researchers requires that the researcher does not have to fear reprisal from society, government, academic institutions, other researchers or students.  

Doctoral candidates and other ECRs have the most precarious positions in academia, and thus they are extremely vulnerable when it comes to reprisals. Yet, as they carry out a significant part of the research, teaching and outreach, there can be no academic freedom if it does not include this group.     

In this statement, Eurodoc provides a series of recommendations that we advocate must be implemented by governmental and academic institutions to secure academic freedom. While some of these principles concern the academic freedom of doctoral candidates and other early career researchers primarily, most concern the whole of academia. For there can be no academic freedom for any group in academia if there is not both institutional academic freedom and academic freedom for individual researchers in general.