About The Project

Threats to academic freedom have raised concerns and generated scholarly debate. Funding science is a key component in sustaining freedom in the pursuit of knowledge creation (research) and transfer (teaching). At the same time, there is limited understanding of how variations in funding regimes impact early-career academics, particularly in the Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH). This project addresses the question of how funding regimes affect the academic freedom of early-career academics. We approach the problem through an open-minded, exploratory and interdisciplinary process. Concretely, this implies that we will be hypothesising freely while also referencing the broad empirical data at our disposal, and that we maintain a historical perspective while also being mindful of recent shifts in funding regimes to gain deeper insights into their effects on early-career academics in multiple contexts.

These contexts are diverse. Geographically, we cover France, Sweden and the UK, as well as South Africa to provide a perspective from the Global South. In temporal terms, our project extends over more than five decades, from the 1970s to the present day. Methodologically we utilise an innovative mix of archival studies, interviews, expert focus groups (with academics as well as other stakeholder groups), and statistical analyses from the numerous data sources at our disposal. Our overarching aim is to uncover the ways in which funding regimes influence career trajectories and the freedoms of emerging scholars and how this group tends to adapt to, or to challenge, current constraints.

Possible implications of our work include a reevaluation of existing funding models to foster a more equitable and sustainable academic environment. By advocating for a positive definition of academic freedom, we aim to inform policy discussions and propose actionable strategies to enhance the autonomy and creative potential of early-career academics in the SSH.