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 […]