Free Universities: Putting the Academic Freedom Index Into Action

This joint report by the Global Public Policy Institute and Scholars at Risk introduces the Academic Freedom Index (AFi), a new time series and near-global dataset on several dimensions of academic freedom. It calls on decision-makers in higher education and foreign policy, university administrations, research funding organizations, advocacy groups, and parliaments to use AFi data to better protect and promote academic freedom. It also includes recommendations for scholars and students.

The AFi aims to inform stakeholders, provide monitoring yardsticks, alter incentive structures, challenge university rankings, facilitate research, and ultimately promote academic freedom. It is the result of a collaborative effort between researchers at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) and the V-Dem Institute, the Scholars at Risk Network, and the Global Public Policy Institute. AFi scores are based on expert assessments by 1,810 scholars around the world which are integrated in a Bayesian measurement model.

The data is publicly available on V‑Dem’s website. V-Dem also provides an online tool that can be used to analyze any of the indicators.

The full report as well as a working paper are available for download.