Echoing the Stand Up for Science movement, which was organised in the US to defend academic freedom, a call to mobilise in France has been launched for Friday, March 7. Conferences, rallies and marches are being organised on the initiative of scientists united under the banner of Stand Up for Science France. The Conversation has been committed from the outset to supporting those who advance research.
March 7 has been recognised as the “Day of the Stand Up for Science Movement”, launched in 2017 in response to the anti-science actions of the first Trump administration. Under the second, attacks on scientists and scientific inquiry have escalated into a systematic assault – tantamount to a coup d’Etat against science itself.
While Donald Trump is often portrayed as erratic, his policies in this area have followed a consistent trajectory. His new administration has once again declared “war” on evidence-based national policymaking and science diplomacy in foreign affairs as evidenced by several early actions. Immediately after taking office, Trump issued executive orders freezing or canceling tens of billions in research funding.
All National Science Foundation projects have been halted pending review, while the National Institutes of Health faces suspensions under Health and Human Services directives. The US has withdrawn from the Paris Agreement and the World Health Organization, alongside a sweeping review of 90% of USAID-funded projects, signaling a major retreat from climate and global health diplomacy. Federal agencies and universities are in turmoil, leaving thousands of research-professors in limbo amid a politically driven funding freeze. The 2025 March simply calls for the restoration of federal research funding and an end to government censorship and political interference in science.
The US is the world’s undisputed scientific superpower – for now
While the Trump administration is not the sole force undermining academia worldwide, its actions are particularly striking coming from the world’s leading scientific superpower. Moreover, the situation is especially concerning because developments in the United States often have a ripple effect, shaping policies in other regions in the years that follow.
Neither of the world’s top two scientific superpowers – Washington and Beijing – is positioned to champion academic freedom. China, having failed a liberal constitutional tradition and academic independence since the 1920s, restricts academic freedom to the confines of one-party rule. Caught between these rival scientific giants – both partners and competitors – the “old” Europe and like-minded coutries remain the only actors capable of setting new standards for academic freedom.
A Nobel prize for academic freedom
A decisive step toward its legal protection would be formal recognition by the Nobel Committees for Peace and Science of academic freedom’s fundamental role – both in ensuring scientific excellence and as a pillar of free, democratic societies.
For the past decade, the Scholars at Risk association has documented a broader global decline in academic freedom in its annual Free to Think Report. The 2024 edition highlights particularly alarming situations in 18 countries and territories (including the United States), which recorded 391 attacks on scholars, students, or institutions across 51 regions in a year.
Data from the Academic Freedom Index in Berlin confirm that more than half of the world’s population lives in regions where academic freedom is either entirely or severely restricted. Some of the most concerning conditions are in emerging scientific ecosystems such as Turkey, Brazil, Egypt, South Africa, or Saudi Arabia. The overall trend is deteriorating: only 10 out of 179 countries have improved, while many democratic regimes are increasingly affected.
Academic freedom in the European Union remains relatively high compared to the rest of the world. However, nine EU member states fall below the regional average, and in eight of them, it has declined over the past decade – signaling a gradual erosion of this fundamental value. Hungary ranks the lowest among EU countries, placing in the bottom 20%-30% worldwide.
Recent laws have further weakened university autonomy across the EU: financial autonomy in Austria, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Slovakia; organisational autonomy in Slovenia, Estonia, and Denmark; staffing autonomy in Croatia and Slovakia; and academic autonomy in Denmark and Estonia. Moreover, the European Parliament’s first report on academic freedom (2023) highlights emerging threats in France–political, educational, and societal–that impact the freedom of research, teaching, and study.
Academic freedom, a professional right granted to a few for the benefit of all
Freedom of expression, a fundamental pillar of academic freedom, has long been established as a human right, overcoming centuries of censorship and authoritarian control. In contrast, academic freedom is a more recent principle, granting scholars – recognised by their peers – the right and responsibility to research and teach freely in pursuit of knowledge. Like press freedom for journalists, it is a right granted to a few for the benefit of all.
Rooted in medieval Europe, academic freedom has evolved from a privilege granted to students in the Quartier Latin to a recognised principle in international rights frameworks. It gained a collective and concrete dimension in the late 18th and early 19th centuries with the rise of the modern university. Wilhelm von Humboldt, founder of the modern public university in Berlin (1810), articulated the concept of ‘freedom of science’ (Wissenschaftsfreiheit), later enshrined in the Weimar Constitution of 1919, which declared that “art, science, and education are free.” The rise of American universities around the same time reshaped the concept, giving rise to “professional academic freedom.” This was formalised in the American Association of University Professors’ 1915 Declaration of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure, which affirmed the scholar’s primary duty to seek and establish truth. Though its roots lie in Germany, academic freedom ultimately became a cornerstone of American academic discourse.
In the United States, academic freedom draws from multiple sources, with its protection varying by state laws, customs, institutional practices, and the status of higher education institutions. However, U.S. Supreme Court rulings have gradually reinforced its constitutional foundation, particularly after the McCarthy era, by invoking the First Amendment. Landmark cases such as Adler vs Board of Education (1952), Wieman vs Updegraff (1952), and Sweezy vs New Hampshire (1957) helped establish a constitutional doctrine on academic freedom. Finally, Keyishian vs Board of Regents (1967) extended First Amendment protections to academia, ruling that mandatory loyalty oaths violated both academic freedom and freedom of association.
Interestingly, the American interpretation of academic freedom is currently more restrictive than the German model in certain respects. Article 5(3) of the 1989 Basic Law affirms the “right to adopt public organisational measures essential to protect a space of freedom, fostering independent scientific activity”. In contrast, the US places greater emphasis on prohibitions and prioritising individual rights over institutional autonomy.
The ‘right to be wrong’
Despite local variations, academic freedom is fundamentally tied to a shared vision of the university that upholds freedom of thought, with rationality and pluralism at its core. It includes the genuine “right to be wrong” – the understanding that a scientific opinion may be incorrect or even proven so does not diminish its protection. This stands in stark contrast to the anti-science, scientistic, or techno-nationalist approach, which views knowledge as a tool of power to serve a predetermined truth and objective of dominance. Authoritarian science, driven by power interests, seeks to diminish critical humanities and social sciences while elevating religion. It tends to reject interdisciplinary work, is exclusively mathematised, and is oriented toward a centralised yet deregulated autocratic tech-utopian state model.
Since 1945, we have operated under the illusion that academic freedom is an indispensable condition for scientific excellence. However, we have recently learned that no systematic link exists between academic freedom and breakthrough scientific innovation in our era of new technologies. Given these circumstances, this proposal advocates for a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize, for the first time in its history, in recognition of academic freedom.
The Nobel Prize Committees for Science and Peace share the responsibility of using their prestigious platforms to uphold fundamental scientific and democratic values. They are uniquely positioned to champion humanist science, reinforcing its importance for scholars, students, and civil societies worldwide. Since the 1950s, around 90% of Nobel Prize laureates in scientific fields have either been US citizens or have studied and worked at Ivy League research institutions.
While some US scientists are contesting actions of the Trump administration in court, academics worldwide should stand in solidarity with their American colleagues in resisting the erosion of science. To strengthen their efforts, they require the support of the Nobel Prize Committees.
Stéphanie Balme is Director, CERI (Centre de recherches internationales), Sciences Po.
This article was first published on The Conversation.
