Phys.org August 21, 2024
We know little about how academic freedom relates to indicators of societal progress, such as innovation. An international team of researchers (USA – Indiana University, Luxembourg Italy, Germany) addressed this research gap by empirically assessing the impact of academic freedom on the quantity (patent applications) and quality (patent citations) of innovation output using a comprehensive sample of 157 countries over the 1900–2015 period. They found that improving academic freedom by one standard deviation increases patent applications by 41% and forward citations by 29%. The results were robust across a range of different specifications. Their findings constituted an alarming plea to policymakers: global academic freedom has declined over the past decade for the first time in the last century and our estimates suggest that this decline poses a substantial threat to the innovation output of countries in terms of both quantity and quality… read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLEÂ
Academic freedom index over time (1900–2015) in selected countries. Credit: PLoS ONE 19(6): e0304560, June 11, 2024