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Dataset · V-Dem Institute
Academic Freedom Index
36 years, 1990–2025 · 176 countries
V-Dem's Academic Freedom Index asks how free scholars and universities are in practice: to research and teach, to share and publish findings, to govern their own institutions, to work without surveillance or intimidation on campus, and to express themselves academically and culturally. It runs from 0 to 1, and a higher figure means more freedom.
This site holds every year from 1990 to 2025, read from V-Dem Institute’s own data and stored exactly as published.
Academic Freedom Index · the file
- Newest
- Academic Freedom Index, 2025
- Held
- 36 years · 6,201 rows
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
0136 years
Every year
Every year comes from V-Dem Institute’s 2026 release, recalculated on one method. Each opens the full table for that year; each downloads as a CSV.
| Year | Countries | Change | Read | Download |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Academic Freedom Index, 2025Newest | 176 | ±0 | September 26, 2026 | CSV |
| Academic Freedom Index, 2024 | 176 | ±0 | September 26, 2026 | CSV |
| Academic Freedom Index, 2023 | 176 | ±0 | September 26, 2026 | CSV |
| Academic Freedom Index, 2022 | 176 | ±0 | September 26, 2026 | CSV |
| Academic Freedom Index, 2021 | 176 | ±0 | September 26, 2026 | CSV |
| Academic Freedom Index, 2020 | 176 | ±0 | September 26, 2026 | CSV |
| Academic Freedom Index, 2019 | 176 | ±0 | September 26, 2026 | CSV |
| Academic Freedom Index, 2018 | 176 | ±0 | September 26, 2026 | CSV |
| Academic Freedom Index, 2017 | 176 | ±0 | September 26, 2026 | CSV |
| Academic Freedom Index, 2016 | 176 | ±0 | September 26, 2026 | CSV |
| Academic Freedom Index, 2015 | 176 | ±0 | September 26, 2026 | CSV |
| Academic Freedom Index, 2014 | 176 | ±0 | September 26, 2026 | CSV |
Show all 36 years
Every year in one file, one row per country per year: academic-freedom-all-editions-nations-inquiry.csv
023 columns
What’s in the file
Every column, what it holds, how it is stored and what its values look like — what a reader needs before opening the file.
| Column | What it holds | Stored as | Range, 2025 | Distinct | Empty | Spread |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
CountrycountryName | The country’s name, as this file spells it. | Text | — | 176 | 0 | |
ISO Codecountry_codeIdentifier | The ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 code, added by this site. Every table here joins on it. | Text · 3 letters | — | 176 | 0 | |
Academic freedom (0–1)academic_freedomHeadline | The headline figure: Academic freedom index (0–1). | Number · up to 3 decimals | 0.019 Nicaragua0.978 Czechiamiddle 0.619 | 156 | 0 |
Profiled from the newest file. Range: the lowest and highest value, with the country holding it when only one does. Spread: countries in ten equal steps from lowest to highest. A higher value is the better result.
03176 countries across every year
Who is covered
How many countries each year holds, continent by continent, who joined and who left, and which places this site covers that the dataset never has.
| 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Africa | 55 | 55 | 55 | 55 | 55 | 55 | 55 | 55 | 55 | 55 | 55 | 55 |
| Americas | 27 | 27 | 27 | 27 | 27 | 27 | 27 | 27 | 27 | 27 | 27 | 27 |
| Asia | 48 | 48 | 48 | 48 | 48 | 48 | 48 | 48 | 48 | 48 | 48 | 48 |
| Europe | 40 | 40 | 40 | 40 | 40 | 40 | 40 | 40 | 40 | 40 | 40 | 40 |
| Oceania | 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 |
| All | 176 | 176 | 176 | 176 | 176 | 176 | 176 | 176 | 176 | 176 | 176 | 176 |
The newest 12 of 36 years.
Who joined and who left
+ Maldives
+ South Sudan
+ Seychelles
+ Djibouti
+ Bhutan
+ Comoros
+ Kosovo
+ Montenegro
+ Equatorial Guinea
+ SlovakiaNot in this dataset · 48 places this site covers
V-Dem Institute gives no figure for these in any year held here. It is the publisher’s choice of scope, and each place’s profile shows what is measured.
American Samoa
Andorra
Anguilla
Antigua and Barbuda
Aruba
Bahamas
Belize
Bermuda
British Virgin Islands
Brunei
Cayman IslandsChannel Islands
Cook Islands
Curaçao
Dominica
Faroe Islands
French Polynesia
Gibraltar
Greenland
Grenada
Guam
Isle of Man
Kiribati
Liechtenstein
Macau
Marshall Islands
Micronesia
Monaco
Montserrat
Nauru
New Caledonia
Niue
Northern Mariana Islands
Palau
Palestine
Puerto Rico
Saint Kitts and Nevis
Saint Lucia
Saint Martin
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
Samoa
San Marino
Sint Maarten
Tonga
Turks and Caicos Islands
Tuvalu
United States Virgin Islands
Vatican City04Provenance
Where it comes from
The path from the publisher to this page, and what was checked and changed on the way.
1 · Publisher
V-Dem Institute, University of Gothenburg
2 · Their file
Academic Freedom Index 2025
3 · Read by this site
September 26, 2026
Imported by a script that parses each figure and writes it down unrounded.4 · Stored as
36 files, one per year
Each downloads as a CSV, or every year together as academic-freedom-all-editions-nations-inquiry.csv5 · Used on
Its statistic page, and every profile it measures
Precision
The headline is stored to 3 decimals, as published.
Rounded by this site
Never. Tables on screen may show fewer decimals; the files never do.
Changed by this site
Reshaped into one row per country: regional and income-group totals are left out, only the columns listed are kept, each row gets its ISO 3166 code, and some country names are brought to one spelling. No value is recalculated, rescaled or rounded.
From the V-Dem Institute's Country-Year Core dataset (v16), University of Gothenburg, published under CC BY-SA 4.0. V-Dem's data runs back to 1789; the series here starts in 1990 so that every row belongs to a present-day country.
05Reuse
Licence and credit
What the publisher’s licence lets you do, what it asks of you, and a credit line and citation ready to copy.
Licence · checked September 26, 2026
- Share and redistribute it
- Adapt it and build on it
- Use it commercially
- Credit the publisher
- Say what you changed
- Publish anything adapted from it under the same licence
Share, adapt and use commercially with credit — and anything you publish that adapts it must carry the same licence.
A credit line
Source: V-Dem Institute, University of Gothenburg, Academic Freedom Index, via Nations Inquiry.
Cite this dataset
V-Dem Institute, University of Gothenburg. Academic Freedom Index, 1990–2025 [data set]. As held by Nations Inquiry, https://nationsinquiry.com/datasets/academic-freedom
The publisher’s own citation: Coppedge, M. et al. V-Dem Country-Year Dataset v16. Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Project, University of Gothenburg.
Plain-language summary, not legal advice. The licence text is what binds.
06Where it is used
Around the site
Where these numbers appear on this site, and the datasets nearest to it.
Charted
Academic Freedom Index by countryWho is highest, the map, the spread, who rose and fell, and the records.
Subjects
Near neighbours
- Government Spending on EducationUIS · 51 held · 1971–2023
- Upper Secondary Completion RateUIS · 45 held · 1981–2025
- Out-of-School Rate, PrimaryUIS · 32 held · 1981–2024
07Questions
Academic Freedom Index: questions and answers
What is the Academic Freedom Index?
V-Dem's Academic Freedom Index asks how free scholars and universities are in practice: to research and teach, to share and publish findings, to govern their own institutions, to work without surveillance or intimidation on campus, and to express themselves academically and culturally. It runs from 0 to 1, and a higher figure means more freedom.
Which years of the Academic Freedom Index can I download?
All 36, from 1990 to 2025, each as a CSV file, or every year together in one CSV.
Does V-Dem Institute rank countries on it?
No. V-Dem Institute publishes values only. The positions shown on this site are derived by ordering the published values, and are labelled as ours.
Can I use it commercially?
Yes, under CC BY-SA 4.0, with credit to V-Dem Institute. The licence text is linked on this page.