Background
A background paper on academic freedom is attached. It covers the following issues:
- Definition of research freedom in Denmark – how it is much narrower than concepts of academic freedom used in other countries and international documents. Importantly teaching freedom is rarely mentioned and poorly defined in Denmark.
- The legal basis of academic freedom and the weaknesses in universities’ organisations for protecting the freedom of the university and every individual. This weakness is especiallyimportant at a time when external contracts have become central to the university’s role and funding, and the pressure on individuals to obtain external funding has become greater with the rise of precarious employment.
- A selection of recent cases of breaches of academic freedom in Denmark
- Organisations interested in the issue, including: DM Survey, commission report and media coverage (among academics – Froskerforum, and in public - Information, etc
- People active in public debate
Aims (to be discussed)
- To contribute to current debate about academic freedom in Denmark. How are the issues being framed (what is included, and what is not included - narrow definition of research freedom, rare mentions of teaching freedom, role of academics in public debate, ability to critique own institution?)
- To consider the legal and organisational weaknesses for protecting the freedom of the university and each individual, as revealed by recent scandals
- Explore issues of teaching and exercising freedom at BA, MA and PhD levels
Activities
- Review the attached background paper - Is there any more information which we have missed?
- How do we take the discussion forward? E.g. a one-day event (maybe in October) or a series of Zoom meetings? (Involve DM? Who else?)
- Wider context. In addition to these activities focused on Denmark, HEPP members are invited to participate in European and International activities:
- The project ‘European Universities: Critical Futures’ has a working group on academic freedom and will be arranging activities with European partners over the next year
- PaTHES (Philosophy and Theory in Higher Education) is holding a series of webinars on ‘Academic freedom and activism’. Papers from the first event are published here and the programme for future webinars is available here
