Collective Statement on Freedom of Inquiry 

Outcome Statement of the SACRU Autumn School 2025

The mission of the Strategic Alliance of Catholic Research Universities (SACRU) is to “foster global cooperation amongst the partners with the goal of advancing world leading knowledge and higher education for the common good.” For member institutions to pursue this mission, both academics and research students must conduct their inquiries freely. Freedom of inquiry is necessary for researchers to search for truth, to collaborate across the SACRU network, and to facilitate the contribution that research makes beyond the bounds of academia, to the good of all.

More precisely, university researchers must be free from compulsion and free to conduct research in accord with good academic practice. All researchers face certain pressures. These may come from governmental policies, the priorities of private funders, the academic job market, and other fronts. In this sense, no research takes place in a vacuum. Yet if researchers have their conclusions dictated to them in advance, are unable to ask questions that are fitting to their subject matter, or have specific methodologies ruled out arbitrarily by those who wield power, then researchers face the sort of compulsion they must resist. The same pressures may also weaken the collaboration on which a network such as SACRU depends: they can discourage intellectual exchange, inhibit joint work across institutions and disciplines, and make researchers less willing to pursue shared inquiry where such work may prove inconvenient. Where this happens, not only individual projects but also the common academic vocation of universities is placed at risk. Researchers are right to resist coercion for the sake of the integrity of the research enterprise itself. Disciplined, thoughtful examination of data and the articulation of honest conclusions become something other than research when compulsion undermines the process. Researchers need to be able to ask questions and even consider philosophical questions about what it means to know something. Surely, though, knowledge cannot entail that a pre-existing agenda cancels out inquiry by foreclosing the process of reflective exploration. Catholic Social Teaching underlines the value of pursuing the truth, the dignity of intellectual labour, solidarity with others, and the orientation of knowledge toward the common good. It therefore supports forms of academic life in which inquiry can be pursued responsibly, collaboratively, and in service of human dignity. The common good, in Catholic teaching, concerns the social conditions that allow persons and groups to reach their fulfilment more readily and fully.

Researchers who enjoy freedom of inquiry also take upon themselves two types of responsibilities. First, they are responsible to conduct their research with integrity and to avoid questionable research practices such as selective reporting. Failure to do so undermines the credibility of particular researchers and weakens the esteem in which the public holds research in general. Second, researchers are responsible to the societies in which they are embedded. Researchers should be especially mindful of those on the margins of society, for they cannot readily speak for themselves. University-based academics have a duty, wherever possible and appropriate, to ensure that the results of research are shared in ways that can benefit society beyond the academy. This responsibility is consistent with Article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which affirms that everyone has the right to “share in scientific advancement and its benefits,” and with the related right to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its applications. Researchers best serve society and its good not by offering various interest groups what they most want to hear but rather by pursuing the truth first and foremost while also examining its application locally and globally.

The participants in the SACRU autumn school of 2025 recognize that freedom of inquiry is under significant threat in many of the contexts in which our universities are based. These pressures take different forms, but they share a common feature: they seek to narrow the space in which genuine inquiry, fruitful collaboration, and the responsible communication of knowledge to society can occur. We therefore join our voices to those who are courageously resisting compulsion and insist that freedom of inquiry is neither a luxury, nor a privilege to be granted selectively, but a necessary condition of responsible research, of meaningful scholarly cooperation, and of the university’s service to the common good. It is a right that we as researchers ought to have and that must be protected, even as such freedom confers on us responsibilities which we must all strive conscientiously to fulfill.

Autumn School Scientific Committee

Prof. Gomarasca Paolo

Prof. Sarisky Darren