The League of European Research Universities demands continuous vigilance on academic freedom
The League of European Research Universities (LERU), a network that gathers the 23 intensive-research universities in Europe —the UB being one of them— demands continuous vigilance on the part of both public authorities and universities to defend the academic freedom. LERU does so in updating a 2010 publication about this issue, given the changes in the legislation and case law that took place during the last decade. New challenges related to certain attitudes on social media, to the cultural change or the pressures derived from funders could violate this intrinsic value in the university’s mission. “There is a need for vigilance in general”, warn professors Koen Lemmens and Jogchum Vrielink, main authors of the publication.
The League of European Research Universities (LERU), a network that gathers the 23 intensive-research universities in Europe —the UB being one of them— demands continuous vigilance on the part of both public authorities and universities to defend the academic freedom. LERU does so in updating a 2010 publication about this issue, given the changes in the legislation and case law that took place during the last decade. New challenges related to certain attitudes on social media, to the cultural change or the pressures derived from funders could violate this intrinsic value in the university’s mission. “There is a need for vigilance in general”, warn professors Koen Lemmens and Jogchum Vrielink, main authors of the publication.
The document, which gathers contributions by Enriqueta Expósito, lecturer and vice-dean for Academic Affairs at the Faculty of Law of the UB, examines the internal tensions of the universities, which feature conflicts between the institutional academic freedom and the individual academic freedom. “Part of the challenge is that universities are quite consensual places, and it’s often the outliers who invoke academic freedom, to defend views that are outside the mainstream”, notes Koen Lemmens, professor at the Catholic University of Leuven. The protection of academic freedom has been a priority for LERU since it was created in 2002. Therefore, in 2010, LERU published a legal document on this issue as a fundamental right of the universities. The document calls on legislators —both at a national and European level— to take measures to protect, facilitate and strengthen academic freedom, as it is key to university teaching and to the current and future research.