Freedom of science

Gerhard Fink

doi:10.1108/k-02-2019-0111

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to highlight the importance of “freedom of science” (“academic freedom”) for the advancement of society and mankind, which, however, is permanently endangered by powerful organisations, groups and individuals, who in pursuit of their one-sided interests are seeking to constrain information about the truth. As a broad term, freedom of science embraces freedom in research, learning, teaching and publication. All of these activities should be dedicated to identifying the truth and learning about the truth.Design/methodology/approachThree theoretical approaches are of importance for framing issues related to freedom of science, which in this paper are integrated into the framework of mindset agency theory: freedom is a value; “freedom” is claimed by agents who pursue specific interests (goals), which might constrain others; and individuals are agents who are interacting with each other within a social system – cooperation, ignorance or conflict.FindingsFreedom as a value is at the core of intellectual autonomy. Intellectual autonomy is a necessary condition for innovation and advancement of knowledge. The observable modes of interaction/coexistence among researchers are influenced by individual research goals and by the researchers’ access to resources, which may be deliberately constrained by opponents or other researchers as competitors.Research limitations/implicationsFor further research, which is beyond this paper, the authors can refer to: analyses of challenges of “academic freedom” – in terms of ethics, protection of individual human rights, political pressures and conflicts of interests; the issues of truth, i.e. the impact of fake news and creation of “alternate facts”; and the relation between academic freedom and employment (academic tenure) in present-day societies. Owing to lack of space, this paper cannot deal with the danger emerging from powerful organisations or powerful individuals, who are challenging freedom of science.Social implicationsIf there is no freedom of science then social progress is constrained. If there is no access to right data, decisions will be wrong.Originality/valueSo far, a comprehensive cybernetic model was not published, which supports systems thinking about scholars and teachers (inter)acting in research organisations.

Highlights

The principle of “freedom” is permanently challenging “borders”, i.e. interests in other domains of life, which seemingly are worth to be defended by specific groups in society
In comparison with Maslow’s rank order of needs (Maslow, 1943, 1970; see Wikipedia, 2018d) we note that the claim of academic freedom addresses a broad range of needs which are to be satisfied to make advancement of knowledge possible: Based on Maslow’s theory we find six classes of needs and desires pursued by individuals: (1) physiological needs; (2) safety needs; (3) social belonging; (4) esteem; (5) self-actualisation; and
In the literature on developments in the field of research and innovation, we find ample references to issues of cooperation: cooperation within organisations, cooperation between universities and higher schools of education, cooperation of universities and higher schools of education with corporations, state agencies and international association, etc

Summary

Introduction

The principle of “freedom” is permanently challenging “borders”, i.e. interests in other domains of life, which seemingly are worth to be defended by specific groups in society. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode

Objectives

Conclusion