4 december 2023
'When external parties control the digital systems and the data within them, academic freedom comes under pressure,' says Kristina Irion, one of the authors of the study. ‘Problematic dependencies arise when it is costly and difficult to change suppliers or when personal and other data from universities’ digital environment are extracted for suppliers’ economic gains.’
'At the same time, we don't want to push away the potential of digital developments. Instead, we want to be able to use them in a safe way,' says Irion, 'but that requires better strategies and collaboration across the university sector.'
Also the European Union can play an important role in promoting academic freedoms in the digital age. 'The EU is exerting increasing influence on how universities and researchers conduct research. Open Science policy and new digital legislation directly affect research activities. That legislation is now fragmented, complex and not always drafted with scientific research in mind. This makes compliance with that legislation unnecessarily complex for universities and academic researchers.'
The UvA has taken crucial steps to protect academic values. The first step in this is that UvA has adopted a digital agenda for itself. This agenda gives direction to the development of digitisation at the UvA in line with public values. ‘We have mapped out the values relevant to digitisation. We also experimented with ways to discuss values. We will incorporate these values, first as a pilot, into decisions we make in our digital infrastructure’, Information Manager Frank van Tatenhove says.
Another step is this research project, which was commissioned by the UvA Executive Board to the benefit of the European university sector. Beyond this UvA supports sector-wide collaboration with Dutch and European organisations representing public universities and SURF, the collaborative organisation for IT in Dutch education and research. Irion: 'After all, this is an issue that affects all universities.'