AFI Update 2025: Anti-pluralist Parties Threaten Academic Freedom

On 13 March 2025, the team behind the Academic Freedom Index (AFI) project released the 2025 AFI Update. The annual report, a collaborative effort by political scientists at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) and the V-Dem Institute at the University of Gothenburg, provides an overview of the state of academic freedom in 179 countries. Eight countries covered by the index have statistically and substantially higher levels of academic freedom in 2024 compared to ten years ago, while the scores in 34 countries or territories have declined in comparison to 2014.

The 2025 AFI Update also explores the electoral success of  anti-pluralist parties as a plausible factor that can drive the decline of academic freedom. It includes related data covering a period of 50 years and case studies on Argentina, Poland, and the United States. The findings were reported by Times Higher Education, Le Monde, Tagesspiegel and Spiegel. 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 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.

Academic Freedom in 2024 (0–1, low to high). Data: V-Dem V-15.