15/12/2025
📢 Academic freedom cannot be taken for granted — and young scholars have a responsibility to speak up.
The Polish Young Academy (Akademia Młodych Uczonych Polska Akademia Nauk) stands alongside our partners from Sweden 🇸🇪, Estonia 🇪🇪, Latvia 🇱🇻, Lithuania 🇱🇹, Finland 🇫🇮, Denmark 🇩🇰, and Norway 🇳🇴 in supporting the Call for Action initiated by the Sveriges unga akademi.
Across Europe, we are witnessing growing pressures on academic freedom: political influence on research priorities, uncertainty in funding frameworks, and increasing risks for early-career researchers who lack institutional protection. These trends threaten not only science, but also the democratic role of universities as spaces for critical and independent thinking.
🛠️ We believe that safeguarding academic freedom requires concrete, systemic action. Three measures are particularly urgent:
🔹 Strong legal guarantees: Academic freedom must be explicitly protected in national legal frameworks as a fundamental democratic principle — not as a secondary or conditional value.
🔹 Independent oversight mechanisms: The establishment of an independent Ombudsman for Academic Freedom and Research Integrity would provide monitoring, accountability, and support for scholars facing pressure or interference.
🔹 Stable and forward-looking research policy: Research governance and funding systems should be designed with long-term perspectives, ensuring continuity, institutional autonomy, and protection from short-term political agendas.
As young academies from the Nordic–Baltic region, we call on policymakers, research funders, and academic leaders to treat academic freedom as a cornerstone of resilient science and democratic societies — and to act accordingly.
🔗 Read the full statement: https://amu.pan.pl/call-for-action-academic-freedom/
Call for Action – Academic Freedom ENG PL We present a joint statement by the young academies of the Nordic–Baltic region addressing the growing threats to academic freedom. This document identifies the key challenges faced by the scientific community and proposes actions necessary to address th...