An expert on global higher education has called for a more balanced approach to academic freedom, saying there is sometimes too much talk in academia about freedom and not enough about responsibility – while on other occasions there is too much talk about responsibility and not enough about freedom.

Chris Brink, emeritus professor of Newcastle University in the United Kingdom and former rector of Stellenbosch University in South Africa, spoke to University World News as he prepared for his keynote speech at the forthcoming Anniversary of Magna Charta Universitatum conference.

“African researchers, in my view and experience, often find international higher education debates and discussions frustrating because such discussions are so imbued with the paradigms of the Global North – or, as some would phrase it, a ‘Western’ world view.”

He points to recent interviews with thought leaders on higher education conducted by the South African Human Sciences Research Council which indicated that knowledge in African universities was “re-influencing” thinking in the north, as University World News reported in April.

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