DAAD Award: Ups and downs in academic freedom
Fundamental Academic Values Award: FAU political scientist Dr. Lars Lott receives DAAD Prize for Fundamental Academic Values
Dr. Lars Lott, who is a researcher at FAU, has been awarded this year’s “Fundamental Academic Values Award”. With this award, the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) honors outstanding academic achievements of early career researchers in areas such as academic freedom or university autonomy at European universities. Lott, who is a researcher at the Institute of Political Science at FAU, was awarded second place with a prize worth 6000 euros for his analysis of phases of growth and decline in academic freedom in a historical comparison.
Congratulations on winning the “Fundamental Academic Values Award”. What does the DAAD Fundamental Academic Values Award mean to you?
I am very pleased about this award that generates a lot of visibility on an international level. Above all, it is recognition for my research during the last two and a half years. In conjunction with the V-Dem Institute (Varieties of Democracy), which is an independent research institute at the University of Göteborg that investigates the quality of democracy worldwide, our work in the “Academic Freedom Index” project looks at the determining factors and consequences of academic freedom. Our research into the “Academic Freedom Index” fits in well with FAU’s interdisciplinary focus on human rights and human rights policy. The idea for the paper that won the award was devised during the project. It’s nice to know that one’s own research is relevant beyond one’s own community of specialists.
The prize recognizes your academic contribution to academic freedom. You have analyzed the phases of growth and decline of academic freedom in a historical comparison. Which conclusions did you come to?
I wanted to know what state academic freedom is in worldwide, how it has developed globally and what influence democratic stability in a country has on academic freedom. Unfortunately, I came to the conclusion that it has not been in a particularly good state from a global perspective since approximately 2010. This is because there have been significantly more episodes of decline compared to growth in several countries since then.
What motivated you as a political scientist to examine academic freedom?
I believe it’s quite logical, because there’s a close connection between the quality of democracy and academic freedom, something that is clearly demonstrated in the submitted paper. Put simply and unsurprisingly, democracies protect academic freedom much better than autocracies. Political processes are thus decisive for how well developed academic freedom is. Where academic freedom is protected better, there tends to be much greater innovation in research and business. Furthermore, well-protected academic freedom creates trustworthy and transparent research. It also follows that the current global trend for declining academic freedom affects the quality of research results and innovations. At the same time, the fact that academic freedom is recovering slowly in countries such as Poland that had an antipluralist government before the new government was elected is hopeful.
What conclusions do you draw from your analysis?
In conjunction with Katrin Kinzelbach from FAU and Staffan Lindberg from the V-Dem Institute in Göteborg, I am currently working on a paper that aims to investigate just that in more detail. We are looking into questions such as when an autonomous society becomes resilient to autocratic tendencies in democracies and how we can effectively protect academic freedom. These are questions that not only interest me as a researcher, but are also relevant for all members of society.
Dr. Lars Lott has been a research associate at the Institute of Political Science (Chair: Prof. Dr. Katrin Kinzelbach) since February 2022, working in a joint research project with the V-Dem Institute titled “Academic Freedom Index: An Innovative Resource for Research and for Protecting Freedom in the Academic Sector.”
Further information:
Dr. Lars Lott
Institute of Political Science
Chair of Human Rights Policy
Tel. +49 152 2839 0400
lars.lott@fau.de