7.5 Academics’ responsibilities: Advice
way (NFR) to ensure that abstracts in Norwegian are also published for all the projects in the Pro-ject Bank.
Political awareness regarding academic freedom of expression
In all their communication, including both politi-cal statements and administrative follow-up, the authorities should highlight academic freedom of expression as a crucial part of the universities’
mission. The Minister’s governance signals are important – in all arenas.
As the Commission described in section 7.3.1, the development agreements between the owner and the individual university are a good place to set differentiated expectations for the various institutions.
In view of their capacities as both responsible authorities and sources of funding of universities and university colleges, politicians and authorities have power over the sector and huge influence in the public sphere. It is important that they are aware of this power when expressing opinions on issues related to academia.
Politicians are of course also free to criticise academia in general and individual research find-ings and fields in particular. Ideally, this kind of criticism should be objective and well-founded, and preferably underpinned by valid arguments, ensuring it too contributes to the search for truth.
Personal attacks or unfounded insinuations about the hidden agendas of experts with whom one dis-agrees, such as reference to «dark counter-forces» undermining the Norwegian fishing industry, have no place in the search for truth.
These types of political statements can also erode the confidence that academia relies on in order to be able to contribute to a knowledge-based democracy.
Open access research
The government’s long-term plan for research and higher education 2018–202841 states that there is a need to make national and international research more easily accessible to the public administration, the business sector and the gen-eral public. Openness, transparency and knowl-edge sharing are prerequisites for all research,
and greater openness in research is important for a number of reasons. It can contribute to more and better use of knowledge by providing access to the results of research for the research commu-nity as a whole, professional users in working life and industry, and the general public. In this way, greater openness in research may also contribute to smarter service development in the public sec-tor and new business opportunities. A separate, but equally important, point is that greater open-ness and better insight into research can help strengthen confidence in researchers and research findings.
In its policy for open research,42 the Research Council of Norway (NFR) outlines a comprehen-sive approach to work in this area, with specific measures to promote greater openness and trans-parency in research and innovation processes.
The policy is based on the overarching principle that research and research processes should be
«as open as possible, as closed as necessary».
This means that research and research processes shall be made openly available unless this is pre-cluded by legitimate considerations such as secu-rity issues, protection of privacy, legal circum-stances or competition considerations. Many insti-tutions have their own internal strategies or plans in this area. The University of Bergen’s policy on open science43 applies to all research, teaching and dissemination that takes place at the univer-sity. The strategy also includes the sharing of open, high-quality learning resources. Open learning resources are part of the university’s aca-demic production and are important for dissemi-nation of knowledge.
The government’s goal is that by 2024 all Nor-wegian academic articles that have been funded by public funds will be openly available. Norway shall be a leader in the drive to ensure that all pub-licly funded scholarly articles are made openly available from the date of publication.44
41 White paper Report no. 4 to the Storting (2018–2019) Langtidsplan for forskning og høyere utdanning 2019–2028 [Long-term plan for research and higher education 2019–
2028].
42 The Research Council of Norway (NFR): Åpen forskning [Open research] 2020 https://www.forskningsradet.no/
siteassets/forskningspolitisk-radgivning/apen-forskning/
nfr-policy-apen-forskning-norsk-ny.pdf
43 University of Bergen: Politikk for åpen vitenskap ved Uni-versitetet i Bergen [Policy for Open Science at the Univer-sity of Bergen] (2020) https://www.uib.no/foransatte/
139288/politikk-%C3%A5pen-vitenskap-ved-universitetet-i-bergen
44 Ministry of Education and Research: Nasjonale mål og ret-ningslinjer for åpen tilgang til vitenskapelige artikler [National goals and guidelines for open access to academic articles] (2017) https://www.regjeringen.no/no/doku- menter/nasjonale-mal-og-retningslinjer-for-apen-tilgang-til-vitenskapelige-artikler/id2567591/
The Universities and University Colleges Act Commission (the Aune Commission)45 concluded that the requirements laid down in Plan S46 for open access publication are fully compatible with academic freedom and the individual researcher’s right to choose their channel of publication. They pointed out that making research available is an important research ethical norm. Universities and university colleges will be better able to fulfil their purpose, which is to be sources of research-based knowledge that is used in society, if this knowl-edge is openly available. Open access publication will increase the significance of research in soci-ety.Against this backdrop, the Commission finds it important that the ongoing work on open research, and open access to research in particu-lar, is continued.
7.6.2 Internationally
Academics all over the world face challenges simi-lar to those here in Norway, despite variations in framework conditions and the regulation of insti-tutional and individual rights. High quality in research, education and dissemination that can influence public debate is in the best interests of society. In authoritarian countries, the situation of students and academics is not always so very dif-ferent from that of others who organise them-selves into groups or speak in public. It is gener-ally a human rights problem that leads to them being subjected to threats, persecution or impris-onment. The acceleration of knowledge exchange that social media enables, aided by artificial intelli-gence and algorithms, combined with the need for science-based policy development and public debate, suggests that the initiatives of European countries and authorities to protect and promote academic freedom and freedom of expression are on the right track.
However, the necessary international collabo-ration and openness in academia also present some challenges for researchers and institutions in Norway. There is a growing need to raise awareness relating to security and export control issues, as well as academic freedom. The export control rules are critically important for Norwe-gian society, as are academic freedom and
free-dom of expression. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs possesses knowledge about the former, but not the latter. This means that the application of the export control rules in the knowledge sec-tor should include special consultation and deci-sion-making processes in which the knowledge sector is actively involved. Decisions should be made by the government, not at the ministry level.
The Commission has concluded that the fol-lowing recommendations will contribute to strengthening the international efforts to improve the conditions for employees’ academic freedom of expression for knowledge exchange and debate both within research and educational institutions and externally with society at large.
The Commission has the following advice for the authorities:
a. The government should continuously assess the status of the cooperation with the partner countries in the Panorama strategy. Norway’s cooperation with challenging countries should have a separate midway evaluation with a focus on developments in academic freedom and freedom of expression and the risk of Nor-wegian institutions contributing to legitimising restrictions thereof.
b. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ enforcement of the export control regulations in connection with knowledge partnerships should include special consultation and decision-making pro-cesses in which the knowledge sector is actively involved and where decisions are made by the government and not at the minis-try level.
c. When developing policy for academic freedom of expression in educational, research and innovation partnerships with challenging countries, Norway should coordinate with the EU and the OECD to ensure that these poli-cies are practised as uniformly as possible.
d. The Commission asks the government to sup-port the ongoing work in the EU to strengthen academic freedom in general and academic freedom of expression in particular. This applies, among other things, to work on indica-tors related to academic freedom of expres-sion in the European Research Area (ERA) and the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), i.e. the Bologna Process, and initia-tives to appropriately evaluate academic free-dom in the midway evaluation of Horizon Europe.
e. The Commission asks the government to introduce a stronger expectation that project
45 Official Norwegian Report (NOU) 2020: 3, chapter 15 46 The Research Council of Norway (NFR): Plan S – åpen
til-gang til publikasjoner [Plan S – open access to publica-tions] https://www.forskningsradet.no/forskningspolitisk-radgivning/apen-forskning/apen-tilgang-til-publikasjoner/
funding distributed through the agreements with the EU and the beneficiary countries under the EEA and Norway Grants schemes will contribute to improving the conditions for employees’ academic freedom of expression for exchange of knowledge and debate, both within research and educational institutions and externally in society at large, and to con-sider research priorities and measures that can support this. The Commission finds that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs should con-sider how the profile of the guidelines and measures in the education and research sec-tion can help improve the framework condi-tions for academics to share their knowledge in society and be supported in this at their institutions. This will be in line with the Minis-try of Foreign Affairs’ strategy for freedom of expression.47
f. The Commission finds that academic freedom of expression and academic freedom have not been priorities in the Nordic co-operation through the NordPlus education programme or the Nordforsk research programme. Nor-way has the presidency of the Nordic Council of Ministers in 2022, which may be a good opportunity to initiate cooperation on this issue among the Nordic countries. The Com-mission asks the Norwegian authorities to raise the issue of academic freedom, including understanding of democracy, active citizen-ship, freedom of expression and confidence in knowledge, as an important topic in the Nor-dic Council of Ministers’ work on education and research.
g. The Commission asks the Norwegian authori-ties to support the UN’s efforts to establish a global code of conduct to combat misinforma-tion online and promote integrity in public information.
h. The Commission asks the government to establish Students at Risk as a permanent scheme and to support the Scholars at Risk scheme, and asks the universities and univer-sity colleges to be active in these networks.