Project leader: Ádám, Zoltán

Academic freedom and liberal democracy

Academic freedom is an indispensable part of liberal democracy. It derives from civil liberties including the freedom of speech and expression. However, it also goes beyond individual freedoms as it institutionalizes politically free and organizationally autonomous academic research and teaching. Hence, academic freedom implies both the freedom of research and expression of individual academics as well as the autonomy of academic institutions.

Autocracies invariably seek to constrain academic freedom. This is because they try to control the intellectual foundations of political legitimation, limit the institutional bases of critical discourse, and influence the reproduction of social elites. Therefore, they prefer to leave no autonomous institution of knowledge production politically and financially uncontrolled.

Academic freedom, however, is not only under stress in autocracies but, increasingly, in democracies as well. As the quality of democratic governance deteriorates in well-established Western democracies, governments tend to undermine both intellectual and financial foundations of academic freedom. Meanwhile, ideologically engaged political actors tend to generate normative expectations that, if politically enforced, also constrain the freedom of thought and expression in academia. Finally, economic necessities and decreasing public funding of academia has led to growing reliance on business actors through often—although by no means always—problematic financing schemes that effectively limit the freedom of research.

The Hungarian case

Academic freedom has been under strain in past decades in most part of the world, as it is demonstrated by the most recent update of the Academic Freedom Index published by the Friedrich Alexander Universität and the V-Dem Institute. Against this global context, post-2010 Hungary constitutes a unique—and many ways rather telling—case. Here, public universities were first exposed to strengthened financial controls by the government in the early 2010s. This meant the introduction of the so-called chancellor system in which finance chiefs were appointed and sent to each public university by the government. Secondly, Central European University—the academically most advanced and financially most independent Hungarian university mainly engaged in social sciences—was effectively expelled from the country. Thirdly, the network of research institutes run by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences was taken over by a government agency. And fourthly, an overwhelming majority of public universities was reorganized in an internationally unprecedented legal format: so-called public interest trusts (PITs) were established to run quasi-privatized universities.

PITs received considerable state assets for free and were entrusted to maintain formerly public universities. Members of the boards of PITs were appointed by the government for life and have been expected to stay loyal to the regime in any circumstances. Meanwhile, PITs also serve as vehicles of quasi-privatization not only for universities but also for state assets placed under PIT ownership and controlled by PIT boards with effectively no institutional oversight. (As a result of chronically non-transparent operational principles, PIT universities have been excluded from receiving EU funding and hence cannot participate as full consortia members in EU research schemes, including Erasmus and Horizon.)

The initiative

The Budapest Academic Freedom Initiative (BAFI) is here to address this situation in Hungary and elsewhere. It is based on the conviction that academic freedom is not only about academic institutions and their staff and faculty but about liberal democracy at large: a political system in which no power is institutionally unconstrained. By producing ideas and knowledge and by influencing the formation of social norms, a free and autonomous academia is a safeguard of freedom and democracy for all. Situated in this context, the Initiative reconceptualizes academic freedom as a set of participatory academic actions in which academics and other interested parties can critically assess public matters and express their views on all sorts of current issues, including the freedom of universities and research institutes themselves.

BAFI is an academic unit seeking social impact. It engages in scholarly research on academic freedom with a focus on institutional endowments and public policies, publishing an annual report on the state of academic freedom in Hungary with on outlook to surrounding countries and the EU (BAFI Annual Report). Meanwhile it seeks to influence the policy making process predominantly in Hungary by monitoring policy outcomes, evaluating impacts and analysing the policy discourse.

To facilitate this monitoring process and to reinforce its public standing, the Initiative organizes discussions on relevant public matters with participation by members of the academic community and other interested partners. Such dialogues inform BAFI views and help build a network of interested members of the academic and policy communities in Hungary and beyond. Discussions are organized offline, online or in a hybrid mode, and their topics can be recommended by members of BAFI’s International Advisory Board. Discussions can be open to the public or closed, depending on topics and circumstances.

BAFI organizes these discussions in the belief that open dialogue on public matters among equal parties are the backbone of democracy. Non-hierarchically organized, inclusive dialogues help reveal the truth(s) and formulate relevant criticism(s) on policy makers. BAFI believes that science is not only about generating instrumental knowledge: it is also about creating and reinforcing social norms by exchanging critical views in democratically organized discussions. Topics of such dialogues can, among others, include the norms of democratic participation with respect to the roles and statuses of extremist political actors (the problem of the so-called democratic firewall, Brandmauer, or cordon sanitaire), the future of liberal democracy and its current crisis, or the democratic processes surrounding climate change. Regarding the current state and future development of academic freedom, dialogues can be organized on institutional safeguards against illiberal or autocratizing governments, the role of economic interests in steering academic research, or the formation and implementation of normative expectations governing academic life and language, be they politically ‘left- or right-leaning.’ The Initiative believes that exercising academic freedom through inclusive, democratic dialogues on these or any other issues constitutes an anti-autocratic counterstrategy itself that can contribute to the reinforcement of the societal foundations of liberal democracy.

Academic affiliation and agenda

BAFI is hosted by ELTE Centre for Social Sciences and governed by a lean staff of project management that consists of a responsible research fellow and relies on the administrative staff of the Centre. Project activities are assisted by the International Advisory Board that includes individual researchers and trusted members of the intellectual community concerned with the future of academic freedom and liberal democracy in Hungary and abroad. The institutional location of the Project is placed within ELTE reflecting the fact that it is one of the last Hungarian public universities characterized by a reasonable level of academic autonomy and freedom.

Once established and institutionally and financially matured—in a second phase of its lifetime—the BAFI will invite academic guests for shorter and longer stays in Budapest to participate in its activities. Academic guests will engage in scholarly work at ELTE and potentially at other universities and research institutes, conducting both research and teaching. In addition, they will also participate in the series of democratic dialogues and will contribute to BAFI publications, bringing in diverse viewpoints and approaches to matters of academic freedom and beyond.

Funded by: Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, Volkswagen Founda­tion, and Kurt and Marga Möllgaard Foundation