Universities and unions launch research freedom campaign

A broad coalition of organisations across the research community are calling on political parties and candidates to explain how they will safeguard the conditions for freedom and independence of research in the general election in spring 2027.

“Finland’s position as a leading country in scientific freedom has weakened. The work of researchers is subject to more harassment than before, and the political and economic steering of research has been strengthened,” the Council of Rectors of Finnish Universities (UNIFI) warned.

“At the same time, the ecological crisis and other security threats, concerns about the economy and disinformation are increasing the need for independent research-based information,” they stated.

Backed by broad range of actors

The Freedom to Research (Tutkimuksen vapaus) campaign is backed by a wide range of actors in the field of higher education and science with several hundred thousand members.

These include the Maj and Tor Nessling Foundation, Young Academy Finland, Finnish Union of University Professors, Sivista – Finnish Education Employers, Finnish Literature Society (SKS), Finnish Cultural Foundation, Finnish Cultural and Academic Institutes, Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters, Universities Finland UNIFI, The Swedish Literature Society in Finland, The Swedish Academy of Technical Sciences in Finland (STV), the Association of Foundations, Federation of Finnish Learned Societies, and The Finnish Union of University Researchers and Teachers (FUURT).

“It is worrying that an increasing number of researchers are facing pressure, threats and targeting. Free science is not the privilege of the research community but the security of society as a whole,” Antti Pajala, president of FUURT, said.

“Only independent research can produce new knowledge, reveal shortcomings and support better decision-making.”

In the spring 2027 parliamentary elections, decision makers will be elected, who will also decide what kind of conditions will be provided for the emergence of new knowledge in Finland, UNIFI said.

“Voters can demand clear answers from the candidates: how will they defend the freedom of science and researchers, secure long-term funding for research, and strengthen the position of research-based knowledge in decision making?”

A number of key actors in the field of science will bring these questions to the election debate with the Freedom to Research campaign, launched on 16 September and which will run up until the election.

Significance for democracy

“It is important that the significance of independent, long-term research for the development, stability and democracy of society is widely recognised in Finnish society. Together, we must strengthen the freedom of science and resolutely combat developments that jeopardise the freedom to research,” Rector Jari Ojala, president of UNIFI said.

“The freedom of science is guaranteed by the Constitution. Research is guided by ethical principles, peer review and responsible conduct of research. The entire scientific community and each researcher bear the responsibility for complying with the responsible conduct of research.”

Ojala argued that when freedom of research and sufficient resources are guaranteed, significant breakthroughs emerge, from renewable energy solutions to research that transforms mental healthcare.

“In this way, research renews and strengthens society, the economy, security and people’s everyday lives.”

Science is characterised by openness, critical discussion and a self-correcting nature – knowledge becomes more accurate, accumulated and develops over time, he said.

Research results are published, and the aim is to make them available to everyone so that society can benefit from them extensively.

“At the core of science is the researcher’s intellectual freedom to assess what is worth researching, how research is conducted and how its results are communicated. The same freedom applies to the content of teaching and pedagogical solutions. Freedom is associated with a great responsibility that researchers feel.”

The campaign will be visible during the autumn and winter in the communications of the participating organisations and in meetings with decision makers.

“Science and education are inseparably linked. Evaluating science solely from an economic perspective would fundamentally alter the values of Western society, and this is not an acceptable direction,” Chair of the Finnish Union of University Professors Teija Laitinen said.

“In the midst of crises, we cannot know in advance which scientific field will provide the knowledge we will need next. The freedom of research makes it possible to find answers to questions that we do not yet even know we will need to ask,” said Sanna Selinheimo, chair of the Young Academy Finland and principal research scientist.

“Academic freedom can only be fully realised when researchers have the opportunity to make long-term plans without the constant concern of securing their next funding decision,” Veera Ehrlén, vice-chair of the Young Academy Finland at the University of Jyväskylä and postdoctoral researcher at the University of Turku added.

Pushback expected

University World News asked Mikko Poutanen, a postdoctoral researcher in political science at Tampere University who is researching academic freedom, how he sees the pledge might influence the political debate towards the 2027 election.

“To me, this is a positive initiative, shared by several stakeholders in Finnish academia, including the employers’ union and employees’ union, so [to call it a] ‘broad coalition of organisations’ is certainly correct,” Poutainen said.

“But is this a topic that will really interest the Finnish electorate? I am not so sure.”

The initiative will likely also face some pushback; the Finns party in the current government can be considered a party hostile to public funding of science and/or respecting scientific expertise, he noted.

“It is true that freedom of science is constitutionally protected, but one could get into arguments over what it is, specifically, which is being protected (i.e. individual academic freedom or institutional autonomy), because the legislation does not go very deeply into detail. This is why the Norwegian reform has been of such interest to some of us.”

A defence against funding cuts

Secondly, he argued, the initiative may also be an indirect way to boost the prominence of science and public investments in science for the next government.

This matters because Finland has currently locked into a parliamentary agreement between most, but not all, parties on the need for €8 billion (approximately US$9.10 billion) to €11 billion more in cuts to public spending.

“It is obvious that, were such plans to become realised, higher education would be very strongly impacted,” Poutainen said.

“We might even need to start preparing for tuition fees for Finns and EU/ETA students. So this is another contextual element that may motivate some to promote the initiative.”

Finally, Finland dropped again in the joint Academic Freedom Index created by the Friedrich-Alexander Universität Institute of Political Science and the V-Dem Institut.

“The 2025 drop in the index for Finland was the cause of much news and concerns. In the 2026 update Finland has dropped even more,” Poutainen said.

A ‘potentially dangerous’ model

Professor Niina Mäntylä, of the University of Vaasa, co-author of “Academic Freedom and the Rule of Law” and “The Legal Position of Academic Staff in a Changing University Landscape: A comparative analysis of Finland, Norway, and Sweden” said: “The present institutional model in Sweden is potentially dangerous should a government come to power with greater ambitions to interfere in the academic sphere. There are numerous examples of such governments both east and west,” she said.

Question: Based on your studies of the rule of law and the legal position of academic staff, are you as Tarschys afraid of a potentially dangerous government and loss of academic freedom at universities, and do you think that the universities and union campaign might work?

She said she welcomed the initiative, particularly because it addresses the institutional dimension of academic freedom.

Although the Finnish Constitution also protects this institutional dimension, the practical significance of that protection has largely been reduced to a formal guarantee of university autonomy, he said.

In addition, in legal practice, academic freedom in Finland is typically understood primarily through its individual dimension, namely as a safeguard of researchers’ freedom of expression.

Conditions for institutional autonomy

“The institutional dimension, however, concerns the conditions that enable universities to fulfil their mission, including adequate funding and working conditions that make academic freedom possible.

“In these respects, Finland has considerable room for improvement when compared with other Nordic countries, such as Sweden and Norway.

Mäntylä said the initiative rightly highlights an important aspect of academic freedom: the relationship between the state and universities. However, in Western democracies the threats to academic freedom are often more complex, indirect, and subtle than in authoritarian regimes.

“Concentrations of power can emerge not only in the relationship between the state and universities but also within universities themselves, particularly as a consequence of managerialism, which has significantly reshaped Finnish academia.

“Recognising these different forms and locations of power is essential if Finland is to reverse the concerning developments that have affected academic freedom in recent years.”
A ‘threat to society as a whole’

Mäntylä argues that it is also important to understand that the erosion of academic freedom threatens not only individual scholars and academic institutions but society as a whole.

“The protection of academic freedom ultimately serves the public interest. For this reason, any weakening of academic freedom should also be viewed within the broader rule-of-law debate.

“From a rule-of-law perspective, the issue concerns the production and availability of independent knowledge as an integral component of a democratic society and its institutions,” Mäntilä said.