2004:1 R

Can Academic Freedom Survive? - an interview study of Swedish researchers situation in the universities time of transition

This interview study investigates the impact of these sweeping institutional changes on the system´s true key figures — the researchers themselves. The study is a pilot survey based on 17 in-depth interviews with researchers in a number of scientific fields, holding various positions and working at one old and one new university (Uppsala and Örebro respectively). Between May and September 2003 ten professors, three lecturers, two research assistants and two project researchers in the arts, social sciences, medicine, natural sciences and technology were interviewed. They were asked about their view of the nature of academic freedom, the current prospects of its survival, the effects of institutional factors on the content of research, and the research process as such.

An assessment of the current situation reveals greater similarities than differences among the various disciplines. Where they differ is mainly with respect to motivation and the driving force of research, where the most distinctly classic researchers, motivated by curiosity, are found in the natural sciences. The findings indicate that the institutional changes in terms of the structure of the funding system, in particular, are beginning to exert an impact on individuals´ actions and thinking, while the value of academic freedom remains a powerful notion in the research community as a whole.

Most researchers regard academic freedom as a crucial precondition for university research. In terms of their right to publish and draw conclusions with no sidelong glances at the pros and cons for other people, and their right to choose their own research problems and methods, this is what distinguishes academic research from, for example, industrial research.

One conclusion is that this freedom also serves to guarantee breadth of knowledge and creativity, since what will prove useful or fruitful can seldom be planned in advance. Is academic freedom at universities under threat? The conclusion here is that direct control is an unknown phenomenon. Nevertheless, research calls for resources, and if these are not available through employment and faculty grants researchers must depend entirely on external funding bodies´ approval. It is striking that strategic considerations, planning and reflections concerning grants take up a great deal of researchers´ thinking power and energy. The large-scale prioritisation process currently under way among organisations that fund research, within various problem areas, entails growing social management and, accordingly, a shift away from the control by researchers themselves on which the principle of academic freedom ultimately rests. Some people perceive it as especially unfortunate that the research councils´ relatively limited resources are ‘earmarked´ for specific purposes.

Natural scientists and medical researchers, in particular, emphasise the dangers to the long-termism and breadth of research that are generated by this system. Basic research is founded on continuous accumulation of skills over a long period. The present funding system therefore encourages short-term projects, and the priorities assigned among academic fields result in discontinuity. This has implications for the choice of potential research topics, with the risk of fields where skills should be upheld being ‘uninhabited´. People in all scientific fields stress the conformism and uniformity generated by the system — characteristics diametrically opposed to the values officially esteemed in research contexts, such as originality, independence and autonomy.

Signals showing what the funders see as prerequisites are conducive to herd behaviour and create fashion trends. Here, the assessment is that the classic curiosity-driven researchers — whose impetus for research is their urge to find out, and who are attracted by the unpredictable — suffer most from the erosion of academic freedom and the growing social control. Such people are found mainly among students of the natural sciences and medicine. At the new universities, in particular, the institution´s identity as a provider of undergraduate education predominates, although individual institutions seek to combine research and training.

To conclude: conditions at institutions have been found invariably, in the longer term, to affect individuals´ behaviour and values alike. The institutional signals now being conveyed to university researchers are not congruent with the values that many of us believe are conducive to research progress: originality, non-conformism, independence and scope for long-term knowledge accumulation. These values must be bolstered by institutional arrangements — not least, those in which research posts are the rule, rather than the exception, at universities. The current funding system manifests marked distrust of the intrinsic power and dynamics of the principle of academic freedom, while also indicating a singularly exaggerated belief in the possibility of both predicting and rapidly solving the enigmas of humankind and nature. And this, in the long term, has an adverse impact on research.