Report by Utrecht Young Academy (UYA) on Academic Freedom

Research shows that academic freedom is increasingly under pressure in the Netherlands. The Utrecht Young Academy ran a survey in 2023 and 2025 to see how researchers across the Utrecht University experience academic freedom in three areas: (1) teaching (2) research and (3) communicate findings. UYA ran the same survey in 2023 and in 2025 with open-ended and closed questions to see whether perceptions of academic freedom had shifted during this period. The report has now been published.

The survey was distributed on faculty noticeboards and newsletters, but still the uptake was rather small with 287 people taking part in 2023 and 129 people taking part in 2025. Although the small uptake constitutes something to bear in mind when studying the report, it does not detract from the ability of the results to demonstrate trends and patterns in the manner in which academic freedom is experienced. The main findings  of the study are as follows:

• Academic freedom is highly valued among UU staff, with a small statistically significant increase in perceived importance between 2023 and 2025.
• UU staff are moderately satisfied with the academic freedom they experience, and their perceptions are fairly stable. However, there is much room for improvement, and there has been a minor decline in the perceived academic freedom in all three domains (teaching, research and dissemination).
• Academic freedom seems to be comparatively vulnerable in contexts of research dissemination to a wide audience. UU staff feel most free to discuss socially or politically sensitive research findings with colleagues and superiors, and least free when engaging with modern mass media and social media.
• Non-Dutch and junior staff perceive lower levels of academic freedom.
• Less favourable scores can also be observed in the Humanities. 

Please read the full report down below. Any questions or comments? Please contact Reine van der Wal (r.c.vanderwal@uu.nl), Katharine Fortin (k.m.a.fortin@uu.nl), or Margreet van Es (m.a.vanes@uu.nl).