This is evidenced by data from Our World in Data.
Academic freedom is the right of teachers, scholars, and students to freely seek knowledge, conduct research, teach, and share ideas without fear of punishment or censorship.
Key Components of Academic Freedom
Freedom of Teaching: Teachers can decide for themselves how to explain a subject and which textbooks to use.
Freedom of Research: Scholars can choose any topic for their work and seek the truth, even if it is inconvenient.
Student freedom: Students can ask any questions and challenge ideas.
University autonomy: The university itself determines its internal educational and research priorities without pressure from the government.
On a global scale, university autonomy is declining. Since 2015, academic freedom has declined in 50 countries, and improvements have been observed in only nine.
The Czech Republic leads all other countries
With a near-perfect score of 0.98, the Czech Republic leads the ranking, followed by Estonia (0.97), Belgium (0.95), and Slovenia (0.94).
Europe dominates the top of the rankings, but Chile and Costa Rica are among the biggest surprises, outperforming many of the world’s wealthiest countries. In many Latin American countries, constitutions explicitly protect university autonomy from political control.
Jamaica and the Seychelles also rank alongside wealthier economies, suggesting that institutional safeguards may be more important for academic freedom than economic or geopolitical power.
In contrast, China, Iran, Myanmar, and Nicaragua are among the countries with the most restrictive conditions for academic freedom in the world. In China, surveillance cameras in classrooms, student informants, and ideological oversight restrict scholars’ freedom, and the country’s score has dropped by 40% over the past decade.
The U.S. now ranks alongside Bhutan and Thailand
The U.S. now ranks last among G7 countries, at a level comparable to Bhutan and Thailand. Its index stands at 0.40—far lower than Moldova’s.
The decline accelerated in 2025, when 20 federal measures were introduced to restrict university autonomy. Thousands of federal research grants were frozen or terminated, and proposed funding cuts of up to 35 percent—or $32 billion—put additional pressure on higher education.
Unlike in Hungary, India, and Turkey, where academic freedom has been gradually eroded over many years, this deterioration in the U.S. occurred in just six years, demonstrating how rapidly university autonomy can weaken.
Our Neighbors
In Romania, the index stands at 0.75 (-18% compared to 2015). In Ukraine, it is 0.28 (-49%). In Russia, it is 0.18 (-53%).
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