CIVICA Data Science Seminar Series: How ‘Free’ is Free Speech in Academia? Effects on Researchers and their Research

Ạbstract of the talk from the speaker

Freedom of speech plays a crucial role in science and the pursuit of knowledge. However, recent evidence indicates a decline in such freedom in the academy with rising calls for sanctions against scholars who make statements about matters of public interest that are deemed controversial or challenge prevailing norms. Using a novel dataset, we examine the effect of these incidents using a series of difference-in-differences designs. We find that the affected scholar’s body of work, published prior to the incident, receives about 4 percent fewer citations after the incident. Affected scholars also become less productive after the incidents, publishing 23 percent fewer works than scholars with similar characteristics.

Considering that scholars at the same institution as the affected scholars and scholars closer in their coauthorship network tend to cite the affected scholars' work less, our results seem to be motivated by scholars seeking to distance themselves. A large number of robustness checks and additional analysis confirms these findings. Our results oppose the Mertonian norm of universalism, which suggests that scientific notions must be evaluated independently from the personal opinions of the scholars proposing them. We provide evidence of a potentially worrisome subjectivity and bias in scientific inquiry which shades doubts over the credibility, objectivity, and inclusivity of the scientific research process.

About the speaker

Lorenzo is a postdoctoral researcher at the House of Innovation, Stockholm School of Economics, specializing in the fields of economics and management of innovation. His research explores how institutions and policies broadly shape innovation, with a particular focus on firm value, corporate strategies, and the intersection of science and politics. Lorenzo holds a PhD in Management from the University of Luxembourg and has been a visiting scholar at institutions such as ESADE, Copenhagen Business School, and ZEW. His work includes a published study on knowledge accessibility and scientific output, and he is a recipient of the DRUID Steven Klepper Award for Best Young Scholar Paper.

About the CIVICA Data Science Seminar Series

The CIVICA Data Science seminar series is the interdisciplinary forum of the CIVICA European University of Social Sciences, and alliance of eight leading higher education and research institutions. We foster a community of researchers, practitioners, and policy makers working to address complex societal challenges through the use of novel methodological and data-driven approaches, drawing from machine learning and quantitative methods from biology, sociology, political sciences, economics, and physics among others disciplines.

Shared among the partner institutions of the CIVICA network, this series directly addresses the data science research stream of the CIVICA initiative.