Document Type
Editorial
Publication Date
4-15-2026
Abstract
"The articles assembled in this Research Topic (RT) offer a timely discussion of a fundamental principle upon which both scientific endeavor and higher education are founded: academic freedom. While there is no single accepted definition of academic freedom, most scholars accept that there are three basic dimensions: the freedom to research in a scientifically agreed-upon and rigorous fashion; the freedom to express academic points of view; and the freedom to educate and to learn (Maassen et al., 2023). In this RT, the first and second of these dimensions are effectively grouped together around an interest in the latitude for scholars to explore, scrutinize, and enhance their area of expertise without imposed restrictions or boundaries, and how, on the basis of this, science may be advanced through constructive discourse. Arguments here have their foundations in notions of intellectual freedom that first arose in Ancient Greece and that were rearticulated in various forms in both the Renaissance and the Age of Enlightenment (Fuchs, 1963). Concerns about the future of academic freedom here have particularly revolved around the growth of nationalism and the changing nature of global geopolitics, with a concomitant effect upon notions of scholarly freedom (Maassen et al., 2023)."
Recommended Citation
Grogan M, Tolmie P, Freedman J, Schaffer S, Offer J and Feldpausch-Parker AM (2026) Editorial: Academic freedom: embracing diverse voices. Front. Educ. 11:1836406. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2026.1836406
Copyright
The authors
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Included in
Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research Commons, Higher Education Commons, Other Education Commons, Social and Philosophical Foundations of Education Commons
Comments
This article was originally published in Frontiers in Education, volume 11, in 2026. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2026.1836406