Academic freedom: Central to high quality research

Today the UK funding bodies have taken the next step towards the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2029. The REF is the UK’s system for assessing the excellence of academic research and informs the allocation of around £2 billion of public research funding each year.

I am grateful for the REF team’s engagement with the OfS on the development of REF 2029 so far. In these discussions I have emphasised that academic freedom is central to the production of high quality research.

This is relevant to the OfS because we now have a statutory duty to promote the importance of academic freedom, and the freedom to conduct research is a central part of that. It is also central to what universities are for. As I’ve said previously, ‘The core mission of universities and colleges is the pursuit of knowledge. Freedom of speech, including the freedom of academics to teach and research, is therefore fundamental to their existence.’ 

Since REF 2021, we have seen the passage of the Higher Education Freedom of Speech Act 2023, and the commencement of some of its key duties in August this year. The REF guidance acknowledges that context as follows:

'The SPRE [Strategy, People and Research Environment] element operates within, and fully respects, institutions’ existing legal duties and sector commitments relating to academic freedom and freedom of speech, including the differing statutory or legal protections that apply across the four nations, without altering or expanding those duties, while supporting research environments that enable a diversity of scholarly perspectives.'

The free speech act applies only to institutions in England and while the REF is a UK-wide exercise there are other UK-wide legal duties that protect academic freedom, for instance those related to Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. However, academic freedom has a role in enabling excellent research that goes far beyond this purely legal context.

You can view the detailed submission we prepared for the REF steering group to inform their current and future work on academic freedom in REF 2029, particularly on the ‘People, Culture and Environment’ element – what is now ‘Strategy, People and Research Environment’.

I’d like to draw out two key points in our submission:

Academic freedom matters for research quality

This has been true since the age of Pythagoras and Socrates. Numerous historical examples since then show that knowledge advances when scholars can pursue research completely free of any pressure or interference based on the conclusions it might reach.

The point is also backed by more recent research – for instance, a 2024 study that found that a one-point increase in academic freedom correlated with a 15 per cent increase in a country’s science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) publications in academic journals ranked in the first quartile. The authors conclude that: 

'Academic freedom is not just about individual rights. It exists as a public good to protect universities and researchers so that they can pursue knowledge that benefits society… Repressing academic freedom may not just ‘chill’ individual faculty members’ speech, it may inhibit the global research enterprise.'

Academic freedom is under threat in the UK

A look at recent headlines concerning UK higher education emphasises this point, but the data bears it out too.

The latest edition of the annual Academic Freedom Index indicates that the UK was between 60th and 70th out of 179 countries. When compared with the 2014 index, the UK was one of just a handful of European countries where a substantial and statistically significant decrease in academic freedom was identified, and we’re now well below Germany, France and Italy.

We’ve previously shared YouGov polling commissioned by the OfS that shows more than one in six (16 per cent) of surveyed academics do not feel free to discuss challenging or controversial topics in their research. Significantly, more women than men feel unfree to discuss challenging or controversial topics in their research (21 per cent compared with 10 per cent).

Organisations like UKRI and the OfS – and the legal frameworks they operate within – have a role in addressing this challenge. But the responsibility to preserve our culture of free inquiry and confront threats to academic freedom is shared far more broadly – by academics, administrators and executives within the academy and by many interested parties beyond it. 

I am always open to hearing – from students, staff, and university leaders – about practical ideas to promote and protect that atmosphere of open and free inquiry that is perhaps our single most precious scientific asset.

We look forward to working with the REF team further as REF 2029 takes shape. 

Arif Ahmed