UK Young Academy signs the Stockholm Charter for Academic Freedom 

The UK Young Academy is pleased to announce our commitment to the Stockholm Charter for Academic Freedom. The launch of this Charter on the 24^th of January 2024 marks an important step towards academic freedom.   

Academic institutions are increasingly confronted with economic and political challenges. These issues require immediate and decisive action. Institutional and individual academic freedom are fundamental prerequisites to conduct free research and education based on scientific principles.

In May 2023, young academies from across Europe came together in Stockholm to collaboratively draft a Charter for Academic Freedom. The Charter is a commitment to the safeguarding of freedom of academic teaching, research, and dissemination. 

We, the UK Young Academy are proud to be a signatory on this important document. The Charter reflects our commitment to the safeguarding of freedom of academics and researchers on a global scale in the face of growing challenges.  

The signing of this Charter is a collective movement across young academies. Initiated by the Young Academy of Sweden, many other European young academies have signed alongside the UK Young Academy, including the Young Academy of Europe, Finland and Scotland. 

The Charter

To meet the economic, institutional, and political challenges that academia faces, we call upon our governments and institutions for science and higher education to protect academic freedom and its attendant rights:

• Freedom of teaching: The freedom of scholars to determine educational content, learning methods, and forms of evaluation.
• Freedom of research: The freedom of scholars to define research questions and pursue these using the research methods of their choosing.
• Freedom to disseminate: The freedom of scholars to engage in evidence-based communication with colleagues, scientific communities, and the wider public and to freely choose how to do so.

Safeguarding these freedoms requires:

• Protection in law,
• the availability of funding for curiosity-driven research, in parallel with other types of funding,
• sufficient resources for a functional work environment,
• a transparent, independent, and scholar-led recruitment process,
• the availability of secure and permanent employment,
• shared governance, i.e., the right of scholars to participate in the decision-making in their institutions.

We recognise that academic freedom is not absolute and comes with responsibilities, including adhering to professional and ethical standards. Academic freedom comes with an obligation to create an inclusive, collegial, and responsible academic community, conducive to curiosity and exchange.

Through this charter, we commit to a vision of a free academia.