Academic freedom and university autonomy

Abstract

The study reviews the historical development of university autonomy and academic freedom by presenting some of the most relevant literature then focusing on national processes. Firstly, it presents the historical antecedents, the nature and development of academic freedom and university autonomy from the medieval university to the early 20th century. The paper then points to new developments in the 20th and 21st centuries, highlighting the consequences of the massive higher education of the 1960s and 1970s and the economic crisis: the impact of the changing public policy approach, public funding, and the organization of science. It covers the interpretations of academic freedom and the possibilities of measuring university autonomy. The paper highlights the relationship between autonomy and accountability, emphasizing that the optimal policy is to combine the values of academic autonomy with accountability along with performance monitoring. The concluding part of the study presents the transformations of the development of academic freedom and university autonomy in Hungary from the change of regime to the present day. The paper concludes with a specific analysis of the reorganisation of the majority of public universities into “public foundations with a public mission”. It points out that this reorganisation risks reducing the autonomy that underpins the quality of universities. The study concludes with the idea that the fundamental question of higher education in Hungary is how much autonomy academic freedom is created by the reorganisation of higher education into a foundation, and how far it is possible to optimally reconcile the autonomy of teachers and researchers with accountability and performance monitoring.