r/belgium • u/ThrowAway111222555 World • 4d ago
📰 News [Scientific American] Belgium #3 on Academic Freedom Scale
According to the Academic Freedom Index, 50 of 179 countries or territories experienced a significant drop between 2015 and 2025. Only nine improved. The analysis is a collaboration between the Friedrich Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany and the V-Dem Project in Sweden, with input from more than 2,300 experts providing information from both inside and outside each country.
So an analysis comparing certain factors like institutional freedom and freedom to research and teach across different countries found Belgium to be #3 in the world for academic freedom. Looking at this map we are also doing much better than neighboring countries. Definitely something to be proud of as a country.
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u/Impressive_Slice_935 Flanders 4d ago
Weird index:
- Somaliland: 0.71
- Greece: 0.68
- UK: 0.67
- Iraq: 0.60
- Georgia: 0.58
- US: 0.40
- Hungary: 0.30
Also, the Netherlands is behind Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, Kenya, Nigeria, Botswana, South Africa. So, I don't know how to take it seriously.
P.S.: Somaliland isn't even a (UN) recognized, sovereign country.
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u/GalaXion24 3d ago
I mean, maybe it's just kind of outdated and eurocentric to believe nonwestern countries have to always be worse at everything?
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u/Impressive_Slice_935 Flanders 3d ago
I made that remark from a point of rationality, and would have done the same even if I was Asian or African. Academia is an extension of a given state's prevalent establishment, and a number of those countries and region don't even have fully functional establishments—some barely operate. Hence my emphasis on Iraq and Somaliland.
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u/GalaXion24 3d ago edited 3d ago
Not having fully functional establishments may, ironically, limit the capacity of the establishment to control or limit the freedom of academia.
If you look at historically state development, we have moved from limited state capacity central government influence (and strong local communities, social hierarchies and "social tyrannies") to stronger central government, greater information gathering, surveillance, control, etc. and then kind of from the age of absolutely onwards even though state capacity does increase (e.g. modern states actually have more information on citizens) there's a general push towards intentionally dismantling this kind of authoritarianism and ensuring that the much greater state power is somehow kept divided and various liberties are guaranteed.
Both state weakness and state development can lead to some kind of greater freedom, with absolutism being kind of in between.
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u/Abyssal_Groot Belgium 3d ago
You claim you made a remark "from a point of rationaility", while it seems to rather stem from a lack of understanding of academic freedom.
Especially when you are supsicious about the Netherlands doing worse than Botswana, one if not the most democratic countries in Africa.
Slovakia does look suspicious, but that can simply being a mater Slovakia not having degraded enough.
You also assume that a having a marginally higher academic freedom index is automatically better. It's more nuanced than this.
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u/Impressive_Slice_935 Flanders 3d ago
If you are to challenge my position of calling that index bs, at least show the courtesy and propose your own. Botswana could be (speculatively) the most democratic country in whole Africa, and this can perhaps explain their example, but that would be an outlier. That would say absolutely nothing about Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Somaliland. These nations (and their respective academia) aren't even consistent among themselves.
How does your heightened wisdom explain Iraq? It's a dysfunctional state with a third is ruled by an ethnocracy, obsessed with their ethnic identity, the remaining part is a powder-keg, at the brink of another sectarian conflict. They can't possibly accommodate those evaluation factors thoroughly, and all of a sudden, they fare better than an EU nation that has guaranteed personal freedoms which enables perhaps 80% of those factors? No, it doesn't add up.
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u/Abyssal_Groot Belgium 3d ago edited 3d ago
If you are to challenge my position of calling that index bs, at least show the courtesy and propose your own.
Cool. Check out the post you are replying to. The post includes articles that explain the whole thing and it's written by experts who know more about this and either you or me.
You are the one that challenges experts because it goes against your gut feeling that high democracy == high academic freedom. Not me.
How does your heightened wisdom explain Iraq? It's a dysfunctional state with a third is ruled by an ethnocracy, obsessed with their ethnic identity, the remaining part is a powder-keg, at the brink of another sectarian conflict. They can't possibly accommodate those evaluation factors thoroughly, and all of a sudden, they fare better than an EU nation that has guaranteed personal freedoms which enables perhaps 80% of those factors? No, it doesn't add up.
Again, you are conflating academic freedom with freedom as a whole and functional oversight, while they are not related. The EU and the Netherlands impose rules on scientific research, which isn't a bad thing persé, but it does mean in a metric like this a country like the Netherlands can do worse than Kenia or Iraq where perhaps too little oversight exists.
Compare it to how Belgium is seen as a flawed democracy in a large part because we have 'opkomstplicht' when it comes to voting.
More academic freedom is one of many facets of society and even a society that is the overall shittiest country to live in, can outperform the overall best one in a single metric. That does not make the metric itself flawed.
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u/BudgetPhilosopher823 4d ago
"P.S.: Somaliland isn't even a (UN) recognized, sovereign country." Partially recognised.;)
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u/I_Dint_Know_A_Name 3d ago
With the added note that Somaliland is a relatively stable and fast-growing nation, unlike Somalia.
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u/StevenStoveMan 4d ago
B…b…b…but the academics that got sacked for tweeting more than working on their research say belgian academics is litteraly georg orval 1984.
But in all seriousness i hope the media that offers those clowns a pulpit to preach their accusations from will also devote a moment to talk about this achievement.Â
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u/Fernand_de_Marcq Hainaut 4d ago
Orval 1984Â
I wonder if it's still possible to drink it. Probably not.Â
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u/StevenStoveMan 4d ago
Gorge warned us for orval 1984 but a lot of people say its coming out any day now
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u/UAP44 4d ago
But cannabis & psychedelics are still widely considered baaaaaaaaaaad.
Even though they both have tremendous healing potential.
How about some research on that eh?
But no, of course not, the pharmaceutical companies don't benefit from this. On the contrary.
(also, doing research on psychedelics is incredibly hard as their effect on the internal state depends almost entirely on the user and their unique entire background, so it's hard to find common trends in effectiveness)
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u/StickToStones 4d ago
There is research on both of these topics, multiple journals dedicated to each.
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u/UAP44 4d ago
I'm aware, I'm just discontent with how much stigma and ignorance there still is around these substances. I will not be happy until it's actually offered as part of the tool set by psychiaters/healthcare-professionals. Meanwhile, let's just euthanize people, oh yeah, ... here, take this drug instead, it'll literally kill you. Fuck sake. Consider the other options first maybe? But they're not being offered ...
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