Academic freedom is frequently debated on a country-by-country basis, and sometimes region by region, as if each case were unique. We argue that this is a misconception. Pressures on research follow cross-border patterns, as do the strategies scholars use to resist them. Those who learn from one another are better positioned to protect themselves, and those who offer the most intriguing teachings are not always the ones we might expect.

When we talk about academic freedom, we tend to imagine a map with a fault line: free universities in some places, censorship and repression elsewhere. The Academic Freedom Index (AFI) tells a different story. Based on assessments by more than 2,000 country experts, the index measures the extent to which scholars are free to conduct research and teach, exchange and disseminate ideas, and express themselves academically and culturally. It also evaluates the autonomy of academic institutions and the safety of their campuses. The index covers nearly 180 countries, with data dating back to 1900. In their latest update, the AFI documents a significant decline in academic freedom in 50 of the 179 countries assessed. Moreover, institutional autonomy fell in 43 countries from 2015 to 2025, including 21 across Europe, North America, and Latin America.

This decline is however not confined to autocracies but is also evident in Western democratic regimes. While the West has long regarded itself as a bastion of academic freedom and institutional independence, the AFI shows that academic freedom is not an entitlement that a country acquires once and retains indefinitely. It can strengthen, weaken, and sometimes recover at markedly different rates, and its preservation depends on political and institutional safeguards.

Changing the narrative

The notion that restrictions on research are a problem of distant authoritarian regimes is a reassuring one, particularly in Europe. Critics have observed that Western debates often locate state interference elsewhere. Defining academic freedom solely as freedom from state censorship also fails to account for structural constraints, including precarious employment and systems in which secure, independent positions are reserved for a small minority of academics.

Research on "shrinking space" helps illuminate these constraints. The term originated in research on civil society and human rights, where it describes the narrowing of the legal, financial, and political space available to non-governmental actors. It has since been applied to academia. The mechanisms are familiar: restrictions on foreign funding, laws targeting "foreign agents," and national security arguments used to constrain international academic exchange. International collaboration itself can also become a source of vulnerability when scholars face political pressure because of their foreign partners. Constitutional protection does not resolve the issue either: formal guarantees do not necessarily ensure academic freedom in practice.

This literature tends to describe these pressures but offers less insight into how scholars respond to them. This raises the question whether and how scholars across the world experiencing shrinking academic spaces adapt and navigate them. Addressing this question requires comparing countries that have taken markedly different paths. For example in Hungary, a change in higher education law forced Central European University to move its US-accredited degree programmes from Budapest to Vienna. In Turkey, many of the scholars who signed a 2016 peace petition were prosecuted or dismissed by emergency decree. In the United States, after decades of comparatively high academic freedom, the federal government froze or cut billions in research funding in 2025 and tied continued support to demands on admissions and curricula. And in Brazil, universities that had endured budget cuts and anti-science rhetoric under the Bolsonaro government have been rebuilding since 2023, yet fearing to loose this freedom with political changes. Addressing this question requires comparing countries that have taken markedly different paths.

Four kinds of trajectories

Academic freedom declines along at least three distinct trajectories, each shaping knowledge of mechanisms used to constrain academic freedom on the one hand and means of resistance of academic institutions and individuals on the other hand.

First, academic freedom fluctuates over time, rising during political openings and falling after coups, crackdowns, or government changes—sometimes repeatedly within decades. Lawsuits against critical scholars, restrictions of certain research topics, and routine self-censorship become part of academic life. Scholars therefore prepare for recurring cycles of repression, not just a single period.

Second, freedom can fall suddenly after a period of relative openness. Funding may be frozen or tied to admissions, curricula, or diversity policies, leading to a drop in institutional autonomy within a few years.  As a response, universities may sue researchers, and international scholars may hesitate or face restrictions to travel or teach. Scholars explore responses as recent developments unfold. Within this category, also systems with constitutional safeguards may face decline despite stable overall indicators. Budget cuts can weaken planning security, and parties may seek to eliminate fields of research, i.e. in Germany, themes like gender, race, and migration have come increasingly under direct attacks. 

Third, recovery follows easing political pressure: funding returns, grants reopen, and conferences resume. But recovery is seldom complete, and institutional trust takes time to rebuild. This does not happen in a vacuum. While one research community is under pressure, the world moves on: funders shift their priorities, international debates turn to new topics, and collaborators reorient or lose contact. Topics sidelined during the restrictions return to an academic landscape that has changed, and scholars cut off from these developments must reconnect not only with funding but also with discussions that continued without them. The challenge shifts from surviving restrictions to restoring capacity and confidence. 

Recurring pressures, shared responses: These accounts differ, but several mechanisms recur: funding that may be withheld, (legal) threats and direct targeting that raise the cost of speaking out, administrative control over curricular content, and a muted reluctance to address certain topics. Studies of academics’ everyday practices indicate that scholars avoid research topics when they anticipate negative repercussions. They also show that professional networks and international exchange can help scholars withstand pressure.

Scholars, however, are not merely victims. Regional coalitions have documented threats to academic freedom and organized solidarity for many years. Associations of peace and conflict researchers in the UK and Germany have begun discussing how researchers can remain resilient and act responsibly amid academic backsliding. Academic communities are already developing forms of resistance and mutual support. What remains lacking is a systematic comparison of how scholars navigate shrinking academic space within their national institutions, and which of their strategies may be transferable. Only by examining markedly different trajectories side by side can we distinguish what is specific to a political or institutional context from what may work more broadly—and assess the extent to which a strategy depends on the conditions in which it emerged.

Learning in every direction: what each context can offer: Here lies an uncomfortable truth: when academic freedom is treated as an entitlement of established democracies, scholars who have worked under pressure for years are positioned as people to support rather than experts to hear. Yet, they have decisive knowledge others do not. They understand which forms of collegial self-organization endure when institutions fail, what early warning signs look like, and which seemingly minor concessions mark the beginning of a broader retreat. They also understand what rebuilding academic freedom requires.

Learning flows in several directions. Researchers in settings with long-standing restrictions can share how communities withstand sustained pressure and maintain academic work. Those in settings experiencing more recent declines can explain what the initial signs were, where institutions proved vulnerable, and how prevention can look like. Researchers in settings that still feel secure can learn what that security depends on and where it is more fragile than it appears. Those in settings undergoing rebuilding can demonstrate how trust, capacity, and institutional confidence are restored.

Learning is not copying

None of this suggests that strategies can simply be transferred. Public protest carries very different implications in settings where it is a constitutional right than in those where it may result in criminal charges. Mutual learning must therefore address two questions simultaneously: what can be transferred, and what is necessarily context-dependent? Without the latter consideration, “best practice” risks becoming another form of paternalism.

This also requires caution in the use of a popular term: resilience. It is easy to ask scholars to be resilient, but resilience must not become a means of shifting responsibility onto those under pressure while leaving the causes of that pressure unaddressed. Coping strategies merit study because they reveal the burdens scholars are compelled to bear—not because they can substitute for institutional and political protection.

What follows in practice

If academic freedom is understood as a shared and evolving condition, three consequences follow. First, universities and research institutions should regard its protection as a collective institutional responsibility rather than a matter of individual courage. This entails planning for security, providing legal support when scholars face lawsuits, and establishing clear procedures for situations in which funding or collaboration is made conditional on political demands. Second, exchange should begin at an early stage. Institutions in settings that remain relatively secure should connect with colleagues who have previously faced pressure before support becomes necessary, as trust cannot be established overnight under duress. Third, funders and science policy should support exchange formats that are not framed as aid. The identity of the funder quietly determines who is regarded as the expert. Formats that bring scholars together as equals, with due attention to safety and anonymity, remain rarer than they should be.

How to learn from each other

Meaningful exchange requires a different relationship among researchers. Interviewing colleagues abroad and subsequently writing about them from the perspective of one’s own country is insufficient. This is a matter of epistemic justice: a scholar’s experience in another context is not raw material for someone else’s theory, but knowledge in its own right. Concepts and indicators are often defined in the Global North, transforming local experience into data while leaving theory where it has traditionally resided. Taking exchange seriously means enabling colleagues to help formulate questions, interpret findings, and share authorship. It also means recognizing that some individuals can speak only with the protection of anonymity or a pseudonym.

This is also why comparative analyses must include settings that consider themselves secure. A country with constitutional guarantees and a stable democratic order is well positioned to examine candidly whom its safeguards protect, under what conditions, and where they fail. Undertaking this work alongside colleagues from other contexts—not as a substitute for listening to them—is a first step toward challenging the notion of a “teacher country.”

Academic freedom cannot be defended one country at a time. It is defended by communities of scholars who know, trust, and learn from one another’s experiences. We believe these relationships are worth building before pressure arises, rather than afterward.