Kirsten Roberts Lyer
New attempts by the U.S. administration to tie federal funding to an ideologically driven “Compact for Academic Excellence” have sent shockwaves through universities, raising alarms about political steering of curricula and governance. These developments are not isolated: they echo tactics increasingly used worldwide, including within the EU, where subtle regulatory and financial pressures are reshaping the academic landscape. To counter this erosion, the EU must treat academic freedom not as a sectoral issue, but as a fundamental right under Article 13 CFR.
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Kriszta Kovács, Julian Leonhard
Campus protests have been testing European universities. The demonstrations at Freie Universität Berlin highlighted the tension between seeing universities as open spaces for free speech and regarding them primarily as institutions dedicated to academic discourse. German courts have leaned toward the latter approach, whereas EU law provides a broader scope for academic freedom while still tying it to academic contexts. Although the upcoming European Research Area Act does not appear to address this issue, guidance from EU law could help universities strike a better balance between protecting the right to protest and safeguarding academic freedom.
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Olga Ceran
Language of instruction in European higher education is increasingly contested. Once tied mainly to minority language protection, language policies now shape debates on internationalisation and the spread of English-language teaching. Yet their implications for academic freedom as a legal right remain understudied. This post aims to explore what interpretative guidance on language of instruction can be drawn from other legal systems and how it could inform future interpretations of Article 13 CFR’s linguistic dimension.
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Stefaan van der Jeught
The freedom to teach, conduct research, and study is inseparable from language, which shapes how knowledge is produced, shared, and contested. A legal framework regulating academic language therefore directly affects the scope of academic freedom. Yet, while Article 13 of the EU Charter guarantees that freedom, it makes no mention of linguistic rights. This raises a crucial question: does academic freedom also include the right to choose the language in which it is exercised? The answer, this piece argues, is yes – but its scope depends on whether we look at the institutional or individual dimension of academic freedom.
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Etienne Hanelt
On the hills of Buda, a vast new campus for Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC) – an Orbán-linked “think tank” and training ground for illiberal elites – is taking shape. Though still little known internationally, MCC has grown into a sprawling network with over 35 locations across Hungary, the wider Carpathian Basin, and even Brussels. Its recent “report” attacking the EU’s Jean Monnet programme and individual academics as “propagandists” signals how it seeks to shape narratives about Europe and academia. Positioned at the intersection of authoritarian legitimation and elite co-optation, MCC is not just a Hungarian phenomenon – it is a challenge to academic freedom with broader European implications.
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Raffaela Kunz
Vetting researchers, screening funding, and restricting dual-use fields show how science has moved to the heart of national security concerns. Within the EU, “research security” has become central to the strategic autonomy agenda, aiming to protect research from espionage, IP theft, and undue foreign influence. Yet securitising science also risks expanding political control and subordinating research to security and market logics. As such, Article 13 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights must be interpreted to protect academic freedom not only from direct state interference, but also from this subtler colonisation by political and economic systems.
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András L. Pap
The Hungarian play script of infringements on academic freedom under the Orbán-regime provides useful junctures on how academic freedom can be both captured and conceptualised. I speak from first-hand experience. As I have chronicled before, I was fired from one university for political reasons; laid off from another after it was forced into exile; and have been working at an institution that has been renamed five times, reorganised, and put under continuous existential pressure since 2010. Five years after the Lex CEU case, it is safe to say that academic freedom is systematically being violated in Hungary. Its roadmap has at least eight lessons to offer.
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Olga Ceran
The Lex-CEU judgment clarified that Article 13 CFR protects both the individual and institutional dimensions of academic freedom. While democratic backsliding was clearly “at the heart of this case”, the judgment did not discuss democracy and the rule of law, at all. And despite considerable attention paid to the EU’s action for safeguarding the two EU values, academic freedom has not been methodically discussed in this context, either. Five years later, it is thus time for a systematic approach to academic freedom, treating it also as a democratic value. This can have potential consequences for its integration into the EU’s rule of law toolbox, as well.
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Christina Angelopoulos
In the name of academic freedom, copyright in scientific works is entrusted to their researcher-authors. However, academics are strongly incentivised to publish their works in proprietary subscription journals, access to which universities and other research institutions are obliged to pay. The Open Access movement attempts to push back by encouraging or requiring researchers to release copyright in their works openly. While this has given rise to objections based on academic freedom, whether Open Access is compatible with academic freedom is a question that should be approached via a principled examination of the purpose and scope that freedom.
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Vasiliki Kosta
Academic freedom and freedom of scientific research are enshrined in Article 13 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. For the longest time, however, this Charter article received practically no or very little attention in both scholarship and EU institutional and jurisprudential practice. The developments are many and rapid, and need to be assessed against the Art. 13 CFR-standard whose content is work-in-progress in judicial and policy practice as well as academic work. This symposium seeks to shed light on all of this and stimulate much needed further reflection.
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