CEU Researcher Receives Academic Values Award; Discusses Multiple Definitions of Academic Freedom
Milica Popović (left) and Elizaveta Potapova (center) pose with Peter Greisler of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, as they receive Fundamental Academic Values Awards this summer. Photo by Michael Jordan/DAAD.
Popović, a Postdoctoral Fellow from 2021-23 at CEU who led OSUN’s Global Observatory on Academic Freedom (GOAF), received the award for her work published in June 2022, which also served as GOAF’s first global report, “Changing Understandings of Academic Freedom in the World at the Time of Pandemic,” co-authored with Liviu Matei and Danièle Joly. The report provided an overview of the existing international level regulatory frameworks for academic freedom, as well as the latest developments in research and reporting on academic freedom. It also offered a systematic insight into new, sometimes contentious, conceptions of academic freedom and attempted to redefine the term.
In an interview recently published on CEU’s site, Popović explains that, as academic freedom sits at the center of various policy efforts within the European Commission and the European Parliament, the report seeks to understand how current international regulations are protecting it. Research on academic freedom requires a global and multi-level approach, she says, also stressing that it is important to ensure the definition of academic freedom is not being produced top-down, but rather by the scholarly community itself.
Popović points out that academic freedom is endangered not only in authoritarian environments, but also within Western democracies. Furthermore, beyond the silencing of particular voices, there are many ways in which infringements upon academic freedoms can occur. That’s why it is important to look into the economy of academic freedom and the working conditions of academic staff and scholarly communities, including contractual scholars or students, she says.
Post Date: 08-31-2023