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¹ú²ú×ÔÅÄ is proud to present the ¹ú²ú×ÔÅÄ Academic Freedom Report 2021. Written by ¹ú²ú×ÔÅÄ Past President Marianne Kneuer (2018-2021), the report presents the results and analysis of a survey on violations of Academic Freedom (AF) elaborated by the ¹ú²ú×ÔÅÄ Committee on Academic Freedom (CAF), and conducted by the ¹ú²ú×ÔÅÄ Secretariat among its collective members in 2020. 44 national and regional Political Science association members of ¹ú²ú×ÔÅÄ responded to the survey.

The report is available on the ¹ú²ú×ÔÅÄ website for all ¹ú²ú×ÔÅÄ members – collective, institutional and individual – hoping that it can serve them as much as it can serve ¹ú²ú×ÔÅÄ in order to get a better picture of the situation of AF violations in their national community or other regions.

¹ú²ú×ÔÅÄ Academic Freedom Report 2021 PDF

Background

International professional organizations in the scholarly community are increasingly confronted with incidents of infringements on AF or with complaints on violations of AF by individual scholars or by institutions. Thus, AF has become a crucial issue for these associations and their work. This also, and especially, applies to the ¹ú²ú×ÔÅÄ (¹ú²ú×ÔÅÄ) as a global professional organization. Even though AF is not a new problem, AF issues have not been confronted in a systematic way and did not lead to institutionalized bodies and procedures until recently. In 2016, ¹ú²ú×ÔÅÄ President Ilter Turan formed an ad hoc CAF comprised of EC Members as well as external advisers from all regions. In 2018, President Marianne Kneuer transformed this ad hoc Committee into a permanent body. Moreover, she suggested conducting a survey with the collective members to identify problems and issues of academic freedom as well as practices to tackle these problems.

The CAF considered it relevant to define in a more concrete way which specific service ¹ú²ú×ÔÅÄ could render to the national associations in the realm of AF. As an international professional organization, ¹ú²ú×ÔÅÄ includes a heterogenous membership consisting - besides the individual members - of national and regional associations around the globe with potentially very different experiences. Which forms of support from ¹ú²ú×ÔÅÄ could be needed in those associations? And how could ¹ú²ú×ÔÅÄ contribute to a better network between the collective members in this regard? Could both sides learn from each other? And how could learning within the national associations be fostered?

Hence, the CAF considered it important to a) get an overview of the nature and scope of AF infringements in the national and regional political science associations being collective members of ¹ú²ú×ÔÅÄ, b) get an understanding of how national associations deal with such infringements, and c) determine how ¹ú²ú×ÔÅÄ can contribute and what services the national associations would welcome in terms of AF issues. The CAF envisaged the overall goal of increasing the possible exchange and joint efforts between ¹ú²ú×ÔÅÄ and its collective member to find ways of dealing with the AF issues.

To get this overview of the different problems, circumstances, experiences and models tackling AF violations, the CAF decided to do a survey among ¹ú²ú×ÔÅÄ’s collective members, resulting in the ¹ú²ú×ÔÅÄ Academic Freedom Report 2021.