Academic Freedom as a Fundamental Right

The paper aims at defining in particular the concept of academic freedom within the context of the European legal sources. Even though the idea of a special corporative status for professors was born during the Middle Ages, it was only during the second half of the twentieth century that the Constitutions recognised academic freedom as an individual's legal right.. Such an individual right is regulated within the category of the freedom of expression, even if it is characterised by particular aspects. Like any individual right that is recognised at the constitutional level, the freedoms of teaching and research are subject to limitations that protect other fundamental rights. Furthermore, today the academic freedom has lost its traditional sense as a defence against public powers and is now granted to play a social function, protecting not only the corporative interests of teachers. It can then be concluded that only through the developing of the social role of education and research, by the principles of quality, transparency and accountability, ensures the individual and institutional rights of the teachers and researchers, strengthening and upgrading the role that universities are playing in the last 900 years.