Building on analysis of the European and Danish scales, this paper discusses original empirical findings and explores the following research question: how are ongoing reconfigurations of the geopolitical order affecting academic freedom in European liberal democracies? This paper explores the current entanglements of the political sphere with education and science in Europe by offering insights into recent policies and initiatives relating to academic freedom and open science at the European and national level. The co-optation of educational and scientific domains by political interests has led to an increased willingness at the national and federal EU level to intervene in academic freedom and the governance arrangements that ensure the openness of higher education on the one hand, while simultaneously seeking to protect these values, on the other. These developments not only risk eroding the legitimacy of the post-World War II liberal order, norms, and models but they also bear witness to colliding freedoms and protection purposes within the liberal order. Critical knowledge production, its circulation, consumption, and curation, are facing these challenges. Theoretically, the paper takes inspiration in recent discussions on the shifting geopolitics in higher education (Moscovitz & Sabzalieva, 2023) and academic freedom (Brøgger & Dakowska 2026, Scott, 2017, 2024; Fish, 2017). The paper examines how pressures on academic freedom currently manifest within two different domains. One domain characterized by political controversies around free speech, anti-gender and anti-woke agendas, a second domain characterized by security politics. The study allows us to explore how increasing pressures on academic freedom can take root well beyond the borders of (semi-)authoritarian regimes and far from the spotlight, adapting to different academic traditions and state formations. The paper draws on EU treaties, policy agendas and strategies presented by the European Commission and the European Parliament, interviews conducted between 2021 and June 2023 with policy officials at the European Commission, representatives of higher education and research interest organizations in Brussels, and Danish policy officials, national policy documents and parliamentary debates.

Brøgger, K, & Dakowska, D. (2026). Academic Freedom, Openness and the Shifting Geopolitics of European Higher Education. In K. Brøgger, et al. (Eds.), World Yearbook of Education 2026. Fish, S. (2017). Free speech is not an academic value. Chronicle of Higher Education, Section B (B10–B11). Moscovitz, H., & Sabzalieva, E. (2023). Conceptualising the new geopolitics of higher education. Globalisation, Societies and Education, 21(2), 149-165. Scott, J. W. (2024). Academic Freedom & the Politics of the University. Daedalus (Cambridge, Mass.), 153(3), 149-165. Scott, J. W. (2017). On free speech and academic freedom. Journal of Academic Freedom,, 8, 1–10.