What does it mean to be free to learn and investigate, while at the same time being free from intersectional discrimination and structural constraints?
Addressing these questions is of utmost importance in the current context of ‘neoliberal academia’ and attacks to democracy. Across Europe and beyond, universities have been witnessing a shift towards neoliberal managerial models characterized by economic productivity standards, competitiveness, and quantitative performance auditing. Furthermore, due to their potential roles in fostering critical thinking and sparking transformative collective action, universities have been increasingly targeted by autocratic governments, with the most recent data showing that academic freedom is under threat globally. Against this backdrop, scholars from intersectionally marginalized communities, such as racialized, LGBTQIA+, and feminist scholars, are particularly vulnerable to the curtailment of their academic freedom. Not only is their work delegitimized and obstructed, but, in some cases, they are even forced to leave their countries. However, existing research has so far focused on attacks against tenure-track scholars. Not holding a tenure-track position makes early-career researchers more at risk of delegitimization and even persecution; yet, their specific challenges remain largely overlooked.
It is starting from these premises that we organized a student jury on the meanings and practices of academic freedom from the perspective of PhD researchers at the University of Trento. Building on citizens’ juries as a tool for participatory democracy, ten PhD researchers from different disciplines came together not to discuss academic freedom as an abstract principle, but to explore how it is materially lived, constrained, and reshaped in their everyday university experience. Their insights reveal how the freedom to produce knowledge depends on the freedom from social, hierarchical, and institutional constraints faced by early-career scholars.
In the first part of the workshop, our participants were asked what academic freedom meant to them. In discussing this, they mainly spoke about the freedom to choose their research topics and intellectual paths. Yet, reality quickly appeared to be more complex than this. Many PhD researchers join projects that have been predefined by funding bodies, disciplinary agendas, or supervisors’ priorities. As one participant put it bluntly: “We are the chosen ones, not the choosers”. According to our participants, far from being a neutral concept, academic freedom is mediated by both one’s position within the institutional hierarchy and by the intersectional structures of power of the neoliberal academia. These include:
- Funding, which favours mainstream, economic-oriented and Western-centric research areas
- Supervisory power asymmetries, which can heavily expand or limit autonomous thinking
- Time scarcity and publishing pressure, which restrict intellectual depth
- Precarious working conditions, which mean fewer protections, irregular income, and limited representation putting at risk personal and professional stability
- Authoritative academic governance, where internal criticism is hindered and frowned upon
- Intersectional inequalities, where experiences of racism, queerphobia, and visa precarity directly curb the freedom to decide where to work and investigate certain topics, in particular gender studies and critical race theories, as well as expose researchers from marginalized communities to greater risks
In the second part of the workshop, participants shifted from diagnosis to imagination and focused on possible solutions to tackle specific problems and strengthen their agency within the academic environment. Working in thematic groups, they proposed strategies targeting working conditions, internationalization and mobility, supervision and academic governance.
To be free to conduct meaningful research, participants called for:
- Training for supervisors
- Psychological support for researchers
- Transparent and comprehensive administrative guidelines
- Stable scholarship payments and adequate office spaces
To be free(r) from structural and institutional constraints, they proposed:
- Improving support with visa and housing procedures for non-Italian researchers
- Organizing welcome events and community-building activities
- Strengthening peer networks and PhD representation in decision-making bodies
These solutions and strategies highlight that, in our participants’ understanding, academic freedom is not simply protected by law and institutions. Rather, it is cultivated through daily practices of care, accessibility, and community-building.
We believe that this workshop provides important lessons for CCINDLE and, more broadly, for academia and civil society. Firstly, for many participants, it was the first time they had ever been asked to reflect on the topic of academic freedom and, in some cases, it was even the first time they had the opportunity to think about it. When those at the margins of the academic hierarchy lack spaces to reflect on and express their experiences, their freedom to speak out is already limited, and their freedom from institutional pressures is fragile. Secondly, the voices of early-career researchers shed light on the conditions under which academic freedom becomes meaningful not just as a principle, but as a lived practice, as well as on the factors that undermine it and put at risk precarious researchers.
In conclusion, if academia is really a place to defy autocratization and protect democracy, it must engage with early-career researchers’ experiences of discrimination, invisibility and exclusion, ensuring that they are free to research and free from the structural obstacles that silence them.
Authors: Aurora Perego and Cristina Mazzero, University of Trento. 15th January 2026