The institution of the university as we know it today emerged during the middle ages and has survived shifts in forms of government, economic systems, war and upheaval. But how sustainable is the university system going forward? Professor of History Johan Östling sees great changes ahead and underlines that universities need to protect their autonomy while they can.
In today’s democracies, we take it for granted that universities are to contribute to an open society in which facts and arguments are central. Yet it has not always been this way.
“Universities have spent most of their history, and to some extent flourished in, undemocratic societies. That applies to this day, in China, for example,” says Johan Östling, professor of history at the Joint Faculties of the Humanities and Theology, who has done extensive research on the role of knowledge in society.
And now, even in a democracy like the USA, universities' freedom is being restricted now universities’ freedom is being restricted in a democracy like the USA, where the Trump administration wants to control what the universities can research and teach.
Countries like Hungary and Poland have also seen increased state control over their universities. In Hungary, for example, the Central European University, CEU, was forced to leave the country after new demands from the government, something the European Court of Justice has criticised.
Read the full article: The university – a thousand-year-old institution that must defend its freedom