Podcasts

The podcast series on academic freedom is part of a broader project by SAR Italia titled SAR Italy on the Record. Content creation and editing were done by students at the University of Padua in the context of the SAR Advocacy Seminar (2024-2025), coordinated by professors Francesca Helm and Claudia Padovani with the support of Mariam Kharpoutli. It aims to provide a structured and comprehensive exploration of academic freedom, addressing its historical development, contemporary challenges, normative foundations, and advocacy practices.

At the moment, the Polytechnic University of Torino is in the process of publishing the episodes. As soon as the episodes are available, they will be included in this section.

This podcast series serves as a knowledge-translation output, combining analytical content with testimonies and student perspectives to showcase the close relationship between academic freedom and democratic values. By foregrounding the lived experiences of scholars and students, the series illustrates how academic freedom is shaped, contested, and defended across different contexts and time periods.

Episodes:

• Episode 1 – Academic Freedom from a historical and political perspective

The opening episode introduces academic freedom through students’ voices as they try to define academic freedom, setting an engaging entry point into its historical and political roots. Starting with the medieval Bologna model, where students ran the university, the episode traces how academic freedom developed through the Renaissance, post-war Italy, and other key European moments. It highlights both progress and violations across time. The episode concludes with a contemporary case, Belarus, illustrating how academic freedom remains fragile today.

• Episode 2 – Academic Freedom from a contemporary and geopolitical perspective

The second episode shifts to contemporary challenges to academic freedom around the world. Beginning with cases widely debated in the U.S., it shows how restrictions on the freedom of inquiry remain globally relevant. The episode then examines European and neighboring contexts (Belarus, Hungary, and Turkey) through testimonies from scholars and students directly affected. It explains how governments use pressure, censorship, or violence to silence academic communities, and how threats to academic freedom signal broader democratic decline.

• Episode 3 – Academic Freedom from a normative perspective

This episode explores the key European and international documents that define and protect academic freedom. From the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and the Bologna Process to European Parliament positions and research policy declarations, listeners learn how academic freedom has been increasingly recognised as a fundamental human right. This episode builds a narrative on how these norms emerged, why they matter, and where they fall short.

• Episode 4 – Academic Freedom from a practical perspective: Advocacy through Solidarity

The final episode focuses on what academic freedom means in practice, and why protection often fails. It explains why many academic communities remain unaware of key rights and why legal frameworks frequently lack enforcement. Through examples, the episode shows how students and scholars are often the first to resist censorship, propaganda, and silencing. It underlines the importance of advocacy at multiple levels: national policy, institutional responsibility, and individual engagement.