Efforts by the administration of US President Donald Trump to control the language used by educational institutes around the world has raised concerns among the scientific community in Finland.
The chancellor of the University of Helsinki, Kaarle Hämeri, told the Swedish-language daily Hufvudstadsbladet in February that US authorities had pressured the university to remove certain words and terms from its publications about Fulbright scholarships.
The Fulbright programme offers government-funded scholarships or grants to US citizens — including students, teachers, scientists and artists — to study or work abroad.
According to Hämeri, the US objected to the use of terms such as "equal society" and "climate change" used by the university in a press release about the programme.
The Hufvudstadsbladet article, and the reaction to it, led the scientific community in Finland to publish an open petition calling on the rectors of Finnish universities and universities of applied sciences to make a public commitment to protect the freedom of scientific research and the freedom of speech.
The petition, which has been signed by more than 800 people, requested that the Council of Rectors of Finnish Universities (Unifi) and the Rectors’ Conference of Finnish Universities of Applied Sciences (Arene) publish statements on their websites that clearly reject any political attempt to censor the activities, research and related communications of higher education institutions.
Heikki Holopainen, Executive Director of Unifi, told Yle that any attempt to restrict the freedom of research or the autonomy of universities will not be accepted.
"We will probably not respond directly to this appeal, as we will receive quite a lot of them, but it is probably necessary to remind ourselves of the freedom of science guaranteed by the [Finnish] constitution and its importance for a democratic society," Holopainen said.
Arene's Executive Director Ida Mielityinen meanwhile noted that an attempt such as this to influence to language used by Finnish educational institutions is unprecedented.
