Vasiliki Kosta and Olga Ceran speak about academic freedom at the University of Bologna, Italy
On 26 June, Dr Vicky Kosta and Dr Olga Ceran visited the University of Bologna, Italy, to present the Vidi research project ‘The EU fundamental right to "freedom of the art and sciences": exploring the limits on the commercialisation of academia’ (AFITE) led by Dr Kosta. The project asks what limits Article 13 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (CFR) might impose on the increasing commercialisation of the academic system.
The main objective of the presentation in Bologna was to introduce the overall project design, present some preliminary comparative remarks on the protection of academic freedom in six different European legal systems (Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Greece, and England), and invite discussions on the Italian constitutional guarantees in this comparative context in particular. The comparative analysis built on the recent workshop on ‘Academic Freedom and its Philosophical Underpinnings in EU law’ that took place on 9 June in Leiden.
The presentation was followed by three short interventions from the designated discussants. Professor Federico Casolari (University of Bologna) drew attention to various EU law and policy initatives that might provide valuable insights for the discussion on academic freedom and commercialisation in the EU. Dr Ylenia Guerra (LUISS Guido Carli University in Rome) focused on the conditionality of public funds for research and education, both in the EU and the national context, as an important consideration in the conceptualisation of the nature of academic freedoms. Professor Corrado Carruso (University of Bologna) summed up the discussions and placed them within the broader context of the Italian (constitutional) law specifically.
The AFITE grant project
The five-year Vidi research project The EU fundamental right to ‘freedom of the art and sciences': exploring the limits on the commercialisation of academia (AFITE) is led by Dr Vicky Kosta and funded by the Dutch Research Council (NWO). The project asks what limits Article 13 CFR might impose on the increasing commercialisation of the academic system. The first phase of the project focuses on establishing the content of Article 13 CFR. The next stages will examine the relationship of Article 13 CFR with commercialisation in theory and test concrete EU laws and policies and national measures for compliance with it.
