The examined institution: academic freedom, freedom of thought, and the politics of knowledge in Further and Higher Education [Editorial]

We publish this editorial at a moment of acute and accelerating crisis for academic freedom. We refer not to the abstract freedom to conduct research without state interference that appears in founding charters and UNESCO declarations. We are focusing instead on the lived, practised freedom to think, teach, and inquire in ways that challenge the distribution of power. That distinction matters. It matters because the research we gather in the Journal of Further and Higher Education (JFHE) on pedagogic and educational themes involve wider issues of social justice, democracy, citizenship, decolonisation, indigeneity, migration, gender, intersectionality, and queer lives. JFHE sits precisely at the fault line between academic freedom as constitutional principle and academic freedom as everyday ordinary practice. And it is this kind of daily practice that is now under assault.

This is an Accepted Manuscript version of the following article, accepted for publication in Venture Capital:
Christou, A., Raby, R. L., & Lambert, S. (2026). The examined institution: academic freedom, freedom of thought, and the politics of knowledge in Further and Higher Education. Journal of Further and Higher Education, 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1080/0309877X.2026.2664329
It is deposited under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.