Academic Freedom Index Update 2026 Released
Institutional autonomy is essential for safeguarding academic freedom. Researchers at the FAU’s Institute of Political Science, in collaboration with the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Institute at the University of Gothenburg, find a positive association between university autonomy and individual scholars’ freedom to research and teach and reflect on the decline of institutional autonomy in the United States.
The Academic Freedom Index (AFI) 2026 Update provides an overview of the state of academic freedom in 179 countries. Its findings confirm a decline in academic freedom over the past decade, with 50 countries experiencing erosion and only nine countries recording improvements.
The report underscores the critical role that institutional autonomy plays in safeguarding academic freedom and warns of the risks that arise when institutional autonomy is weakened. A focus on institutional autonomy in the United States reveals that its decline has been faster and more pronounced than in other major autocratizing countries, such as Hungary, India, and Türkiye.
Please also visit the website: academic-freedom-index.net , where you will find an interactive visualization of the data, country profiles, and information on the index project. The website also offers user-friendly graphing tools for in-depth analysis.
For questions on the AFI Update, contact Dr. Angelo Vito Panaro, Dr. Lars Lott, or Prof. Dr. Katrin Kinzelbach.