Academic freedom 2023 – out of the crisis?

It can be argued that developments in higher education in the first two decades of the 21st century are indicative of a crisis of academic freedom. It can be further argued that this is at least in part an intellectual crisis: in the years after the end of Cold War academic freedom was taken as granted as a conceptual reference, there was no systematic work to update and adapt it to new realities in higher education, politics and societies. This resulted, in Europe and beyond, in the lack of a conceptual reference for academic freedom that was up to date, shared and effective. There are also important political and regulatory dimensions of the crisis. After 21o5, several endeavours emerged attempting to reconceptualize, and also codify and regulate anew academic freedom in specific national contexts, in particular, but also in international and even transnational contexts. In this talk, several of the most important endeavours of this kind will be reviewed and, on this basis, the question of whether or not we are moving out of the crisis of academic freedom will be discussed.