Japan received a mediocre score of 0.6 (on a scale from 0 to 1, where 1 is the highest) in the annually published Academic Freedom Index, ranking 102nd out of 179 countries. (https://academic-freedom-index.net/); the indicators for each country are easily viewable on the world map.) Looking into Japan’s breakdown, the score for “institutional autonomy” stands out as particularly low, at 1.74 (on a scale from 0 to 4). Globally speaking, Japan falls into the category of countries where government influence—particularly from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT)—over university operations is strong (excluding financial dependence). Universities in Japan also tend to be overly dependent on the government (again, excluding funding), and such factors appear to be reflected in the low score for “institutional autonomy.”
In contrast, Germany ranks 11th with a high score of 0.93. The country has enacted the Freedom of Science and Research Act, which ensures a high level of autonomy and a creative environment for academic institutions. Among both politicians and scholars, there is a shared understanding that the most effective approach to advancing academia is to “fund without interference.” Other European countries also tend to score above 0.8. Taiwan scored 0.87, South Korea 0.83, and the United States 0.69.
Naturally, one might ask: “Is such an index even reliable?” Academic freedom is not easily defined or measured. Therefore, defining and evaluating the degree of academic freedom becomes a specialized research endeavor. The results of such research are submitted as peer-reviewed papers, published after evaluation, and then subjected to international scrutiny and critique.
The Academic Freedom Index is published annually by the Institute of Political Science at Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU). It is part of the V-Dem Project (Varieties of Democracy), which aims to conceptualize and measure democracy (https://www.v-dem.net/). This project is led by the University of Gothenburg and includes researchers from many countries, including Japan.
The V-Dem project—and its focus on academic freedom as one of its components—is a globally unique initiative. Few similar efforts exist. According to one related academic paper, “The Academic Freedom Index is the first conceptually thorough assessment of academic freedom worldwide and a times series dataset going back to 1900. While some previous datasets exist, they are geographically limited and methodologically or conceptually insufficient to offer a comprehensive picture of the levels of academic freedom across time and space.”
But is there even a globally accepted definition of academic freedom?
In response to this question, the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) has provided a definition based on Article 15(3) of the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. As of April 2020, it is defined as follows:
“Protection of researchers from undue influence on their independent judgment; the possibility for researchers to set up autonomous research institutions and to define the aims and objectives of the research and the methods to be adopted; the freedom of researchers to freely and openly question the ethical value of certain projects and the right to withdraw from those projects if their conscience so dictates; the freedom of researchers to cooperate with other researchers, both nationally and internationally; and the sharing of scientific data and analysis with policymakers, and with the public wherever possible”
Based on this normative definition, the research group identified the following four essential components of academic freedom, drawing on past publications and dialogue with international policymakers, academics, and advocates in higher education:
- Freedom to research and teach
- Academic exchange and dissemination
- Institutional autonomy
- Campus integrity
Additionally, for dimensions that may not be fully captured by these four elements, the researchers include:
- Academic and cultural expression
While this fifth element is part of the larger V-Dem dataset, it is not strictly synonymous with “academic freedom.” Nonetheless, in this study, it is used as a proxy for other factors that might be otherwise difficult to quantify.
The actual survey was conducted by 2,329 scholars across 179 countries. Each of the five components was evaluated by several country experts with specialized knowledge. To reduce evaluator bias, each expert was first asked to answer a set of hypothetical questions, and their responses were used to calibrate the evaluation model via Bayesian estimation. Academic papers detailing this methodology and its quality control processes have been peer-reviewed and published. The final index, which ranges from 0 to 1, has a confidence interval of approximately ±0.1 at the 95% level. In other words, even if the evaluators change, the resulting score would generally remain within this margin.
That said, a high academic freedom index does not necessarily correlate with a country’s research output. In fact, academic output seems to be more closely related to the amount of public funding allocated to research.
One particularly interesting finding is that over 75% of the countries with the lowest academic freedom scores (below 0.2) actually have constitutional protections for academic freedom in place.
